A Hero's Apprentice
by Rouge shinagami
Summary: Falwynn didn't know what to expect when she left home with the Legendary Hero of Lore, the harsh training and danger she expected, but not the snarky dragon or constant attacks from the Rose. Meanwhile, the Hero struggles with himself and the new responsibility he has, not just as the Defender of Magic but also now as a teacher. They both think they're ready, they're not.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors notes**

All aspects and lore belong to AE, I just made the MC

I've had this idea in my head for a little while now and just had to write something about it. I'm really excited to see how they play out the rest of this quest saga.

if you want to see what my character looks like i then check out my DeviantArt account, Bdrocks12. I tried to post it on this chapter as a Link but for some reason it wouldnt work.

" _thoughts_ "

"regular speech"

" **yelling** "

This chapter has been edited as of Oct/9/17

 **Chapter 1** : The Perks of having an Apprentice

" _by the Avatars what have I gotten myself into_." the Master Soulweaver, the great Hero Brent, thought as sweat trickled down his back.

He had done many things before in his career as an adventurer, from killing dragons and hordes of undead to rescuing entire villages from disaster. He'd gone through some of the most disgusting experiences of his life because a friend had asked him too, and now that kind of loyalty had gotten him stuck in another situation.

He had an Apprentice, he was responsible for someone's life.

And it wasn't like back in the old days when he had helped train Ash, they had both grown and learned together as friends and as comrades. He thought back to when he first saw Ash after escaping the ice, tall and strong, he had become a good hero in his absence.

But Falwynn wasn't Ash, and to make things worse she wasn't some random kid.

He looked to his left a the shorter women walking beside him, the almost lime green hair was short at the back which allowed her to wear her tanned cloak and hood. Long tresses that stopped at chest level framed her face, tied together at the ends by a leather strip. Brent let out a slight chuckle, clearly this was influenced by her time around dwarves. She stood at around his shoulder, since he knew that he was 6ft 4" he guessed she was around 5ft 8". Her amour was made up of Leather mostly, with metal knee guards and a simple breastplate, along with mid thigh high boots and gloves that ended at her wrists.

over all she was a pretty girl, but with strong arms and quick feet from her time running around and working at her fathers forge. Her hand crossbow was in a holster along her back hidden behind her cloak and in easy drawing distance if they were attacked.

" _its ok, you can do this, it can't be any harder then fighting Sepulcher_ " the thought of his old enemy brought a bitter taste to his mouth. But his mood wasn't ruined, he had over come that struggle and now he was stronger for it.

That was right, he could do this, he'd had plenty of teachers over the years, and he was one of the strongest people on the planet. He could teach her a few tricks at the very least. His mind wandered back 11 years into the past, back when all he'd had was his dads old beat up armor and a brand new fresh out of the forges sword.

That brought back a repressed memory, back when he'd had to chase that damned box stealing sneevil. Yes, maybe it was time to thin the horde again, the knights at Oaklore would be thankful at least.

*Meanwhile*

Falwynn glanced at the many facial ticks that appeared on the Hero's face, he had a black beard that framed his cheeks and chin with slightly less hair in his mustache, and a head of chin length hair just as black as his beard. His skin was a dark tanned color that meant he was possibly from the Sandsea, and he was very tall compared to most of the men she had seen in her life. An image of Fangblade appeared in her mind but she dismissed it as quickly as it appeared, focusing on Brent's most unique facial feature. His eye's were bright gold, she wondered what his eyes used to look like since there was no way it was natural. He had several scars on his face as well: a cut across his right cheek, a notched eyebrow, and finally a cut at the along his hair line.

Brent's faced stopped twitching and he glanced at her quickly, she was caught staring red handed and looked away a little to fast, trying to hide the slight blush on her cheeks. Her mind went back to why his face had been twitching in the first place, she was curious about what he could have been thinking about so hard. She hoped he wasn't stressing about what her parents had done, it's not everyday that he meet an old friend and are asked to look after his child.

Don't get her wrong, she loved her father for letting her do this and was ecstatic that she finally gets to go on a real adventure with the most famous Hero in the world. She knew he must be at least a little worried about protecting her, but she wasn't afraid, he had already saved her life back in Swordhaven during the tournament.

She hadn't even had the time to blink, one moment she had been starring death in the face as a huge axe headed right towards her. The next, Brent had been standing in front of her, his strange gauntlets held at his side with the axe blade buried in the dirt. His long black coat billowing from whatever movement he had made to block the giant axe, white fur that seemed spotless covered the collar and hood. It was a coat that one could only be woven by a skilled weaver, meaning that he had become a master of his craft. Across his broad shoulders was a longsword with a golden hilt and black leather wrappings around the handle. A brown belt was around his waist with 4 potion bottles attached to the side, and a medium sized satchel along the back. She knew it was a bag of holding, which was a common item for most adventurers to have since it allowed them to carry far more loot. She knew that she was safe in his company.

Even her mother had known that she would be safe, otherwise she never would have let her go. Falwynn mind continued to wonder as they walked down the familiar roads to Falconreach, she could still hardly believe it, that she was the apprentice of her childhood hero. She had read letters from her father about him growing up, and even more personally from her father when she had returned from the dwarven kingdoms. And now she was going to learn from him!

" _maybe he'll show me how to use a sword! Or maybe he knows some ancient technique with a crossbow_!"

She started to imagine herself, older and stronger, with people looking to her for help, her parent's proud smiles as she told them of all the people she had saved.

It was with these happy thoughts that the approach the eastern gates of Falconreach and entered the city.

Brent and Falwynn waved to the Guardians on duty and passed by as they entered the city, passing by Aria's animal shop.

A loud explosion sounded throughout the main street from Cysero's magic shop, however the townsfolk were used to the craziness surrounding that store and its owner. Falwynn was the only one to stop and stare at the smoke began to pour out of the front door, her eyes wide at the lack of reaction from anyone.

Brent just chuckled to himself, admiring what he considered to be the "younger generation" and their ability to be amazed by what had become normal for him. He did stop to think that the age gap between the two of them wasn't so large, he'd left home at 16 too begin his adventure, and it had been 7 hard years since then. You also had to consider the time that he had spent frozen, he was only 23 when he should have been in his 30s.

Taking a closer look at Falwynn, he had to guess that she was around 20, 18 at the youngest. Though he quickly looked away so that he wouldn't get caught starring, he was about to mention heading to the inn for some food when a loud yell came from behind him.

" **where's that damned lazy hero!? I've been waiting here for hours!** "

Wincing, Brent turned to the unhappy scientist marching down the street, a large scowl on his face that only intensified when he spotted the Soulweaver coat amongst the various peasants.

"you had better have my materials! I've been waiting all day for you and I had better get some results!"

Lim yelled practically in the hero's face, he raised his hands to keep him away a little bit. "It's ok Lim calm down, I talked to an old friend of mine, he said that Lymcrest was full of ore. He just needs some time to get it."

His scowl deepened, "and how should I know that you mean what you say?" even with his eyes being covered by his googles Brent knew he didn't believe him.

"I can make sure you get your materials" said Falwynn quietly.

Lim's head turned once again, noticing the green haired girl for the first time, his interest was peaked as shown by his raised eyebrow "really? And how can you do that?".

The young girl's chest seemed to swell up and he former nervousness disappeared, "my dads the one who runs the mines now, I can send him a letter for you"

Lim raised his hand to his chin, thinking on her offer. After a few seconds he nodded his and thanked Falwynn, his scowl returned as he looked back at Brent "perhaps you will do better then this lazy lout".

With his piece said, the scientist returned to his shop to continue his experiments.

Brent just starred at his new apprentice, surprised by how easily she had gotten Lim to back off. He couldn't help but ask with a smirk across his lips "what are the chances you can make all my problems disappear?"

The girl blushed and laughed a little seeing that it was just a joke, she was happy to have already been helpful.

The two of them continued on their way to the inn, passing by Ash standing at his usual post across the street from Twilly the red Moglin. They ordered some food and sat down at one of the nearby tables, several patrons waved or gave a shout of greetings when they saw Brent, who returned them with a polite nod or wave back.

"are you always this popular?" asked Falwynn, she knew that Brent was famous, especially in Falconreach, but she was still surprised by the amount of people who stopped to greet him.

Brent just laughed as he leaned back in his chair "sometimes, but tonight seems like a busier night then usual".

A server came by with their respective orders, a stacked sandwich filled with meat and cheese, as well as a bowl of mushroom soup. As they began to eat their food Falwynn decided she had to ask Brent a few questions about his adventures, there was no way all of the stories were true.

*Timeskip*

Laughter filled the nearly empty tavern, centered around two figures who were nearly falling out of their chairs from laughing so hard.

"there's no way he did that! Everyone in the Necropolis would have heard him" said Falwynn in between gasps of air. Brent just laughed along with her before containing himself somewhat "I swear he stood there, shaking like a leaf in a storm before suddenly yelling "I need to rid the world of these servants of evil!""

This sent the two into a new wave of laughter, Brent whipped a tear away from his eye trying to think back to the last time he laughed so hard for such a simple reason.

Finally, Falwynn's laughter seemed to die down enough that she could sit properly in her chair, a yawn escaped passed her lips. Brent noticed and his laughter quieted down "maybe we should call it a night, we'll start your training in the morning" he said, his smile still in place but with a serious look in his eye.

His Apprentice nodded her head and stood up from her seat offering to get them 2 rooms from the inn keeper, she was surprised however when Brent shook his head and started walking towards the door. She followed behind him but could keep from asking "where are we going to stay if not at the inn?"

Brent just kept walking, letting out a "you'll see" over his shoulder.

The two walked down another of Falconreach's main streets, until they arrived at a large glowing portal.

Falwynn stood in shock, never had she seen such complex magic, sure she had seen some mages throughout her life, as well as some wondrous machines in the dwarven kingdoms. However, true teleportation portals like this were very rare.

Two purple pentagons glowed as they overlapped each other, with 7 smaller circles rotating around the pattern, each with their own magic sigil's inside. At the center of the portal were 4 bars that appeared to be transparent and in the shape of a cross, floating in front of them were two more circles with scripted written along the curves.

Brent walked in front of her so that he stood in front of the portal, he turned an looked at his young charge. The daughter of one of the few friends he still had left, he couldn't fail this time, not like he had before.

"If your going to be my apprentice, then your going to have to meet the rest of my team"


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors notes**

All Aspects and lore belong to AE, I just made the MC

I want to just say a quick thank you too Shadowed Calling, your my first person to follow a story of mine. I hope that you are the first of many, and if you have any constructive criticism for me, then please leave a review.

with that out of the way, lets get on with the fic!

Chapter 2: Ravenloss & some old friends

The trip through the portal always seemed to be shorter then it should be, Brent continued walking as he opened his eyes. The sight of a large underground city greeted him, most of the buildings were made from grey stone with purple or blue roofing tiles. This city had become a refuge for him, much like it had for any other magical being to afraid to set foot onto the surface.

He thought back to the first time he had visited the city, his time with Tomix before they defeated Greed and broke the Judgment Wheel.

His attention was brought back to the present by the arrival of his apprentice, she appeared to be caught off guard and stumbled out of the portal. Luckily for her and her pride she didn't tumble into the dirt.

Falwynn looked up and took in the massive undercity, the scenery wasn't too different from what she had lived in as a child, and she found herself oddly comfortable being underground.

Brent turned around and spread his arms wide, a large grin spread across his face as he spoke,

"welcome to Ravenloss, where anyone on the run from the Rose can find shelter."

Falwynn took a closer look at her immediate surroundings, they were on top of a layered park that appeared to be near the center of the city. Directly behind her was the purple portal leading back to Falconreach, along with a large tree, it's bark was stark white with purple leaves. As she looked at the rest of the city she could make out more of these oddly colored trees.

Brent took her silent observation as a good thing and directed her to follow behind him.

As the two made their way down the stairs leading to the main road of the city Brent pointed out some of the local hot spots. The Inn was just off to the left of the portal, it was run by an elderly man named Oroon who was always looking for mushrooms and lichen for his alcohol.

"if you find yourself with some free time you should ask him about doing some work. He's fair and the pay is pretty good compared to other jobs in the city."

Falwynn was about to ask if that was where they would be staying for the night, but Brent shook his head and lead her down the opposite way.

This lead them to Dakarai's house accessories and Olfar's vegetable stand, as well as a few other stores that sold clothes and other necessities. Brent lead her into an alleyway saying that it was a short cut to his friend's house. They passed a few more houses as well as the local barber shop, all along the alley Falwynn could see anti Rose propaganda nailed to walls and on doors. She would have asked about it but Brent's stance on magic was a well-known fact throughout the kingdom.

They continued to walk until they came to an intersection, on the corner of an alley stood a large grey skinned ogre. It must have been standing nearly 9 feet tall and was covered in steel plate armor with horns protruding out of the helmet and shoulder plates. At its side was a large club that was nearly as tall as its wielder, at the end several spikes capped the mighty weapon, creating an image or a powerful monster.

This image was shattered as soon as Brent casually walked up to him with a big smile on his face, his voice came out much louder then he intended "hey Stevy! How's it going?"

Falwynn had to stop and process that, " _the ogres name is_ Stevy?"

The ogre looked down at the Hero, who's head only came up to his mid chest, before giving him a toothy grin in return.

"always looking for more fangs, you bring them to me, I like" it said in a deep voice that seemed to rumble out from his large chest.

Brent just gave him a quick tap on the knee before he started walking off again, his sudden departure surprised Falwynn and she had to jog to catch up quickly. Brent raised his hand and waved a farewell, he yelled over his shoulder back at the friendly ogre "don't worry Stevy, I'll be sending someone by with some more fangs for you soon."

He looked down at Falwynn as she caught up to him, her eyebrows came together in slight annoyance.

"your talking about me, aren't you?" she said in a rather bland tone, Brent just let out a laugh and nodded his head. "trust me, its not too hard and you'll make a decent friend out of it."

By the time Brent had finished talking they reached the end of the alleyway and their conversation ended as they joined the crowd of citizens who were returning to their homes after a long day. They had entered what appeared to be a residential district of the city, and of all the people and different races walking the streets there were three individuals, two women and one man, who stood out amongst the crowd.

Each other them was wearing black armor with spikes and a silver lining along the edges of the armor, however the most striking feature was that their skin was a shade of purple that Falwynn had never seen before, as well as white hair. One of the women waved at Brent, to which he polity waved back, they didn't stop to chat like Brent had done with Stevy, but Falwynn was already becoming to tired to care.

Brent stopped once again and pointed out another building, this one had a red roof with a gold painted trim. A set of stairs lead up to a main door, a red carpet flowed down the steps to the main street. On either side of the door sat two torches embedded into the wall, a large sign read "Card Shoppe" in golden letters, 5 playing cards were behind arranged behind the letters.

"this is where I spend most of my time training, if you're not sure where to find me this should be the first place you check. I'm a regular customer here so the owner knows me, she'll point you in my direction."

Falwynn turned back to him with a curious look on her face, "what kind of training can you do at a place called the Card Shoppe?"

"you'd be surprised" Brent said with a wink.

"I'll take you by in the morning, we'll figure out what level your currently at right now. Then I'll know what you need to focus on for your training."

Falwynn just nodded her head, her tiredness was momentarily forgotten about at the idea of training.

They continued on their way passed a few large trees, the white bark standing out against the stone buildings that surrounded them.

A loud noise could be heard from down the street, the sound of a hammer striking metal, with a strange tune that was almost musical. As they walked further down the street Falwynn realized it was coming from a shop, lights of different colors flashed out of windows and into the street. She could see that there was a sign made of blue wood nailed into the stone above the door, it read "Soul Forge" in messy writing. Below the sign the words "For Money" were also written, finally there were arrow crudely drawn around the front entrance, as if it would entice more people to come inside.

Falwynn just turned to look at Brent with an eyebrow arched.

"that's Lanrete's Soul Forge, his older brother is a friend of mine. He's kind of rude, but he's a master at using his forge. With it he crafts elemental spirits into sentient weapons and armor, I've got one of them myself actually. I'll introduce you to him tomorrow at some point, maybe after we're done training."

The young apprentice nodded her head once again, her fatigue returning to her at the reminder of how late it was. It didn't help that tomorrow was looking like it would be a busy day as well.

" _I wonder what a Soul Forge looks like? I'll have to ask the owner about how it works_."

They walked for a few more minutes, the houses became more degraded as they went deeper into the neighborhood. Some of the houses had boards over the windows, while others were covered in cracks and plant life. Pockets of mushrooms and other fungi grew on the ground and front steps, while vines covered the walls and roofs of several buildings.

Finally, they neared the end of the street, an inert portal was built into the cave wall and no other buildings could be seen except for 4 houses. A large tree stood beside the portal, its branches covered the two closest houses, while the one beside them covered the largest of the houses. Brent lead Falwynn too a two-story home with a blue paint over the entire second story, a faint glow came through the windows.

Brent knocked twice on the door, then he quickly looked at me with an alarmed expression, as if something had just come across his mind.

"by the way, try not to freak out when you see my friend. I promise I'll explain soon"

She opened her mouth to ask, " _what do you mean don't freak out_?"

The door swung open and a blue man in bright white armor stood in the door way.

The Blue man's eyes seemed to light up at the sight of the hero, it took him a moment to realize that he wasn't alone. He looked between the two before settling his gaze on Brent, "you've got to stop introducing me to people like this." His eyes then shifted too Falwynn, "my name is Aegis, I am the Spirit of Valor and Soul Ally to the Legendary Hero. May I know yours?" he – Aegis, said with a smile and an extended hand.

Falwynn blinked for a second, then smiled quickly and shook the offered hand.

"Hi! My names Falwynn, I'm Brent's new apprentice. I'm honored to meet a friend of his, and I hope I can earn your respect." All of this came rushing out much faster then she intended.

Aegis just laughed good naturedly, she noticed that it sounds like chimes ringing in a cold breeze.

Brent joined in on the laughing, before motioning to the two of them.

"I'm glad you two have introduced yourselves, I'm going to go get the big guy. I'll be back in a few minutes, Aegis, can you show her to the guest room please."

Aegis nodded his head, a large wisp of blue energy flowed out of a bright helmet. He stepped out of the way and motioned for Falwynn to walk inside. She looked over at Brent quickly and saw that he had walked over to the neighboring house and walked inside, not even a knock.

As she walked passed the threshold of the house she was caught off guard by the cold, as well as the amount of ice in the room. The entire floor was covered in it, with several pillars coming up to cover sections of the walls. Off to the side she could see a large table with three unique chairs arranged around it. On one side of the table was a medium sized stand with a large purple cushion on it, she had never seen the style before in her life.

On the other side of the table there was a tall throne made of ice, runes ran along the edges of the armrests and flowed down the sides. The last chair was made out of a strange metal, its design was simple, similar to a wooden chair one could find in any common house. it was turned around so the back was against the table, the seat facing towards the wall.

Passed the table there was a simple kitchen, much of the counter was made out of ice and wood. A large ice chest took up most of the space in the back of the room, beside it were several storage containers that must have held other kinds of food and provisions.

Aegis walked passed all of this, instead he walked towards a stair case that lead up to the second story of the house. The staircase was made out of ice which was sculpted to look like a railing that would have belonged in a palace. The stairs led up to a straight hallway with three doors, one was within stepping distance of the stairs, another one was in the middle of the hallway, and the final door was at the end of the hallway.

Aegis looked at Falwynn and then pointed towards the furthest door, "that's the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. The door closest to it is Brent's room, and the door closest to us is my room. The guest bedroom had been modified to be like any other room on the surface, so you don't have to worry about keeping warm tonight."

Falwynn nodded and moved towards the hallway before stopping just in front of the Ice Spirit.

"what exactly are you? I've never heard of a Soul Ally before."

Aegis didn't seem fazed by this question, he might have even anticipated that she would ask.

"to make a long explanation short, I was once a soul weaver, when I died I became an elemental spirit. This is what happens to all soul weavers upon death, years later I meet Brent when he was just starting his training. I decided that his cause was worthy of my support, and agreed to fight beside him against any foe so long as he stayed true to himself."

She couldn't help but stare at the Spirit after that kind of answer, he'd said it as casually as one would explain the weather. Falwynn knew that it had to be deeper then that, clearly the two of them were partners, the team kind, not the – nevermind. Regardless, she knew she would have to get the full story from Brent at some point.

It was at that moment that the front door swung open, Falwynn and Aegis looked over the railing at the entrance and saw Brent causally walking through the front door. She was about to wave at him when she saw the second person enter the door way.

He was tall, " _sweet avatars why is everyone he knows so tall_!", and clearly not human.

His skin had a purple hue to it, not as dark as the three strangers she had seen earlier. It also helped that he had hooves instead of feet, she would have been caught off by the horns if she already didn't suspect he had some goat like features. Four horns curled out of his head, two large ones coming out just above his temples, while two smaller ones grew just behind his ears. His face sported a full shaggy beard, his eyes were black with a glowing green iris that looked like it would glow in the dark. His body rippled with muscle, his physique was powerful and spoke of countless hours training.

It was then that she noticed his hands, they looked like they had been scorched till they turned black. She couldn't imagine what could have caused that to happen, but he clearly wasn't bothered by it.

Around his waist was a blue sash with a gold belt that held it against his hips.

Her first reaction was fear, this guy looked scary, but she knew that anyone who was a friend of Brent's wouldn't hurt her. Brent seemed to notice her hesitation and tense posture, he scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically.

"sorry to spring something like this on you again, especially after I just did at the front door. But I promise this is the last time, this is Yashta, he's the muscle of our little family. Don't let his silence bother you, he's a softy at heart."

The comments didn't seem to bring a reaction out of Yashta, Falwynn still waved her hand and said a quiet hello to her new teammate.

Brent made a sweeping motion towards the table, a silent message for everyone to take a seat.

They all approached the table, Falwynn was about to ask where she was supposed to sit when another chair made of ice began to rise up from the floor. She looked over at Aegis and saw that he had one of his hands raised towards where her chair had appeared. Falwynn gave him a quick smile in thanks and took the offered seat, the ice was cold against the leather of her shorts, but luckily it didn't touch her skin. Hopefully they wouldn't be sitting here for long.

Yashta took a seat on the strange cushion, he was cross legged, or at least as close as one could get with hooves. Brent took a seat in the metal chair at the head of the table, he sat on it backwards with his forearms on the top of the chair. His gauntlets made a clanging noise as they struck the metal surface, none of the men seemed to notice.

Brent looked at each of his companions, then his eyes settled on the newest addition to his team, and his first apprentice. As she sat there looking at three sets of eyes staring back at her, she found herself slightly uncomfortable for the oddest reason.

Each of their eyes were glowing, a light blue behind Aegis's eyes, the piercing green of Yashta, and Brent's golden eyes that seemed to shine like two suns.

"I'm not going to keep you up for much longer, but first you need to know what your walking into now that you're on this path. I'm sure I don't need to ask if you know what the Rose is?" he said with an arched brow. Falwynn gave a quick node to his question, his brow dropped and he continued.

"right now, I'm working with several other individuals to undermine the Roses operations, and to limit the amount of damage they do to the magic community on Lore. For the most part I've been successful, but that only means that I've manage to piss off several of the Roses' heavy hitters."

Brent expression changed, his demeanor suddenly became very serious. His intent was obvious, to make her understand just how dangerous that statement was. That some of the most powerful people in Swordhaven were planning his demise, and hers as soon as they learned about her.

"in about a month's time I'll be leaving on a long-term mission against the Rose, before that I'll introduce you to the people helping me." He then rose from his seat and walked towards his apprentice, until he was close enough to ruffle her hair.

"until then you're my primary focus, we'll find out what to train you in and get a schedule for you planned out. When I come back I want you to be on a completely different level then when I leave."

With that he walked towards the stairs, and wished everyone a good night.

The others began to rise out of their chairs so Falwynn hurried to do the same, brushing off some snow that had built up on the bottom of her shorts. As she began to make her way towards the stairs she noticed Yashta's glowing eyes following her. She stopped in her tracks and stared back at him, not really sure how to interpret this new development.

The silence was broken when Yashta took a step towards Falwynn, and she resisted her instinct to take a step back.

Yashta looked Falwynn dead in the eye, in a ton that was both rich and deep he said, "you are the student of my charge, from now on you will always have my protection."

She looked up at the large goat man with wide eyes, honestly, she was going to have to get used to all this craziness at some point.

"um, thank you Yashta, I'll try not to cause to much trouble"

He nodded with a stern expression, then he exited the house without another word.

Falwynn let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, she glanced toward the stairs and saw Aegis looking at her. A pleasant smile on his face, "welcome to the team, I look forward too fighting side by side with you." With that, he to walked towards his room.

It wasn't long before Falwynn found herself in the guest room provided for her, just like Aegis said it looked like any room one might find in a tavern. She knew that she was tired so she made short work of her clothes and armor, stripping down to her small clothes before crawling into bed.

She thought one last time about how things were going to change, starting tomorrow she would begin to learn under a Hero. She would be expected to become just as famous as her mentor, which set a high bar when your teacher was arguably the strongest person in Lore. With that last thought, Falwynn's head nestled into her pillow, and she drifted off into a deep sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Authors Notes

All aspects and Lore belong to AE, I just made the MC

Ok first i just want to apologies for the long delay, I wanted to get this out days ago but I wasn't satisfied with what i had. Even worse I had to split the chapter in to two because I've been busy with midterms and University. I don't to make you guys wait to long so here is what I have so far, I promise I will get to the combat next chapter. I been working extensively on just how I'm going to do the combat system, since it obviously wont be turn based like it is in DF.

any constructive criticism is appreciated, I tried my hand at some humor this time around and hope you guys like it.

anyways, enough of my rambling and on to the fic!

 _"thoughts"_

"regular speech"

" **yelling** "

Chapter three: Pick a Card, any Card

Brent felt the cold against his back as he woke from his sleep, the sensation was one he had become familiar with, and for one second he thought back to the ice Jaania had trapped him in. Panic immediately filled him at the memory, and it took him a few seconds to bring his breathing back under control.

The small clouds of breath he could see coming out of his mouth didn't help.

In a moment Aegis was at his side with a worried expression on his face. Brent let a smile cross his face hoping that it would reassure his loyal friend, judging by the scowl on Aegis's face he knew it was a wasted effort. He sat up and swung his legs over the frozen edge of his bed, felt his bare feet crunch against snow. It wasn't so long ago that the cold used to reassure him, almost ground him to reality, his breath in the air was a sign that he was alive. He had embraced the element so that he could be closer to Aegis, be able to understand him on a closer level, his eyes had even glowed an icy blue. Of course, that had been back when he had worn the Chilly Cobalt Dragon Helm, before he had been trapped by Jaania.

Now it felt like the cold would freeze the blood in his veins, he was scared that he would be frozen again. Locked away while everything and everyone he loved was taken from him.

Brent felt Aegis's hand on his shoulder, no words were said between the two. They had fought about this for weeks in the beginning, Brent wanted to deal with his new fear of ice. Aegis thought he was going to fast by surrounding himself in it while he slept, but Brent never changed his opinion and things stayed as they were.

Aegis moved to the far wall which separated his room from Aegis' before turning to face Brent, "I'll be downstairs, I'll throw some meat over the fire for you and Falwynn when you come down."

A quick nod and a thank you was all the acknowledgement Brent gave him. And with that the ice wall parted in the shape of a door for Aegis to enter, it then sealed itself and Brent was left in his room.

If there was one good reason for why Brent hated Jaania, it was because she made him afraid of ice.

Brent gave his head a quick shack to banish those thoughts from his head, he already had enough to worry about.

He made his way from his bed to the middle of the room his hands stretched out as he felt the spirit threads move and spiral around his body. It was an old practice method that Tomix taught him, to use the soul threads to make clothing helped with both control and imagination, which were both vital when using Soul Claws. This had been one of the few lessons that Tomix said were vital to surviving as a Soul Weaver, one that cost him gravely to learn.

When his signature coat was finished forming Brent walked towards the door of his room, he turned and surveyed the room one last time. His eyes glanced at the large sab of ice that was serving as his bed, a scowl quickly spread across his face, he would have to get over his fear of ice soon if he was ever going to win against that woman.

*Meanwhile*

Falwynn slowly awoke from her sleep, she stretched out with her arms and legs while letting out a loud yawn, feeling her joints pop as she stretched across the bed. Her eyes remained closed as she slowly began too get up, the warm blankets falling around her waist as she brought her arms above her head and stretched one more time.

With that done she rubbed her eyes and scanned the room, last night she had been to tired to make out anything special in the guest room. It was nice in a simple way, nothing had been personalized so most of the walls were bare. A rug had been placed on the floor between the bed and the door leading out to the hallway, and across from her she saw a dresser along with a chest against the wall closest to the bed.

She noticed her clothes from last night were spread across the floor, she would have to remember from now on to use the chest to store her equipment. Her eyes finally settled on a medium sized clock hanging from the wall just beside the door,

it read 9:30 am.

Her eyes shot open and any feeling of fatigue faded instantly, she couldn't believe that she had slept in so late! By now Brent would either be waiting downstairs, angry that he'd had to wait so long for her, or he would have gone to the Card Shoppe already.

She scrambled to get her gear back on, running around the room looking for pieces like her gloves and shorts that seemed to have disappeared. She spent far more time then she thought she should have looking for her clothes, only to find them under the bed, she would have hit her head against the wall if it would have done anything productive.

Once her gear was on she practically ran out the door and down the hall, her pace slowed as she neared the frozen stairs leading down to the main floor of the building. Even having slowed down she still nearly whipped out and fell, only for the ice to reach up and stop her.

"There's no need to rush, and you should never run-down stairs, especially if they are made out of ice"

The voice belonged to Aegis, no one else had that musical quality to their voice. Falwynn nodded at the advice, feeling rather stupid for almost injuring herself needlessly.

She looked over and saw the Spirit of Valor standing in the kitchen, several trays and pans had been cleaned and placed in a neat pile off to the side, but that wasn't what caught her off guard.

Aegis was wearing a pink apron, and it wasn't flattering in the slightest.

He must have noticed her expression because he gave her a confused look, as if to ask what she could have possible found strange about this situation.

" _Nope, nothing weird here, everything is normal_ " Falwynn told herself, " _this is just my life now._ "

The ice lowered back into the stairs that she had seen the previous night, and she made her way down the to the main floor. It was at this point that she noticed the smell of cooked meat and heard her stomach growl, a blush spread across her checks at the volume of the noise.

"Please have a seat, I'll have a plate fixed for you in a moment." Said Aegis without looking at Falwynn. There was only amusement in his ton, the chime of his voice sounding just a little different then before.

She made her way to the table between her and the kitchen, choosing to sit in the chair Aegis had made for her last night. A plate was quickly put in front of her, far faster then it should have if Aegis wasn't expecting her.

On the plate were several slices of meat, some sliced fruit, and finally an egg that had been pan fried. The smell coming from the meat almost caused her to drool, it smelt amazing.

She looked up to thank him for the food, but a smirk almost spread across her face at the sight of the ridiculous apron, but she kept enough control that it came off as a smile.

Aegis smiled back at her, completely unaware of what she had just been thinking.

"I always make extra food, especially meat since it's Brent's favorite thing to eat. We always have an abundance of it, so feel free to eat as much as you want."

With that he walked back over to the kitchen and began humming to himself. Falwynn just stared at his back, not believing the absurdity that had recently become her life. Here was an elemental spirit, one who had undoubtedly fought against foes she couldn't even imagine, and here he was dressed up in a pink apron acting like a housewife.

She just shrugged in the end and ate the food that had been prepared for her.

The food was surprisingly good, and she was finished much faster then she realized. Aegis took the plater from her and motioned towards the door with his free hand.

"You had better hurry, Brent went to the Card Shoppe 10 minutes ago. I'm sure he's already started training so there's no rush, but it would be best if you got there before he finished."

A quick nod and a thank you was all Falwynn gave before she headed for the door.

*Later*

The walk towards the Card Shoppe had been uneventful, the only difference being that she had seen a minotaur leaning up against a tree outside of the Soul Forge. She didn't speak to it, but had felt eyes on her as she walked passed.

Now she stood in front of the store, pausing only for a moment to wonder what kind of craziness she was about to see. After all, if Brent came here for training then it had to be something outlandish or extremely deadly that was sold here.

" _If that were true though, why would it be called the Card Shoppe_?"

With that thought, she walked up the stairs and entered the store.

The building was a lot smaller then it looked on the outside, the walls were a sandy color with wooden and stone pillars along the walls. Purple vines entwined the two closets pillars, and Falwynn noticed several playing cards laying on the ground haphazardly.

Her eyes finally landed on the 2 front desks and the owner of the shop.

The desks were made from the same materials used to support the walls, however, one had the sign for clubs on it, while the other was a spade. On top of the desks there were small tablecloths, each was purple and had the complete set of symbols one would find in a deck of cards. There were weapons scattered around the room, daggers left on the floor, a large red sword hanging on the back wall, and a tall staff tipped with a wide golden head.

Standing behind the desk on the left side, with her body towards the wall was a woman, Falwynn would have to guess that she was in her late twenties. She wore a gothic style of clothing that was black and red, the sleeves only covered her arms from wrist to elbow, the end was attached to some fabric arranged around her shoulders.

Her skin was a pale complexation, not surprising for people who live underground, and her hair was a dark blue colour styled at the back to almost resemble horns. the symbol for clubs had been tattooed in black just below her left eye.

Speaking of her eyes, they were the colour of Amethysts, and they were looking right at her with a slight frown on her face.

"Can I help you with something?"

Falwynn heart froze in panic, " _How long was I starring at her for_?" her eyes darted away, and she began to look around the room trying to think of something to say.

Interestingly enough there was only one sign of magic in this shop, a unique playing cards floated inside of a glass jar. Unlike a common playing card, this one had a golden dragon's head attached to the top of the card and was blank. The front was white and gold, while the back of the dragon's head was blue, she could also make out a faint golden aura coming off the card.

"That's a really interesting card you have there, why is it in a case like that?" Falwynn tried to say with a smile on her face, but even she could tell that it was weak.

The girl just raised an eyebrow, she didn't look very impressed.

"Its in the case to make sure that it doesn't fly away, it took me 7 hours the last time it got out."

Falwynn ended up starring again, but before she could be caught she asked. "Have you seen a friend of mine? Really tall probably in a long coat?"

The shop owners gaze remained the same, "I'm afraid you just missed him, but if you wait a few minutes he should be back" she finally turned to face Falwynn and with her finger pointed towards some of the weapons on display.

"Would you be interested in buying something while you wait?"

The young apprentice was about to answer when she was once again caught off guard, and left speechless.

" _ **How can she get away with wearing a top like that!?**_ "

The middle of the woman's shirt was wide open in the shape of a heart, with the lower curves just barely covering enough for it to be decent. This girl was a triple threat apparently, Falwynn was so embarrassed that she kept reacting like this. What a horrible first impression, but on the other hand,

" _Who wears stuff like that!?_ "

Her eyes shot back up to the shop owner, ya she'd noticed Falwynn starring, again.

*Time Skip*

Brent starred down at the stone remains of Grrrberus, it wasn't the real creature, but a shadow made to look like it. Still, it had been strong enough to bloody him, the long cuts across his ribs a testament to when it's claws had broken through his shield (the defense skill: Aegis). His mana was also low, he probably had about a quarter of his total reserves left.

He normally didn't have any trouble with these kinds of monsters, he normally trained against shadows in the image of the Avatars for crying out loud!

But he always did those fights with his dragon and Aegis, this just showed how much he relied on them. They were a team, and he didn't want to imagine what would have happened if he had to go through it all over again alone. He remembered back to a dark time in his pasted, Brent had become many things over the years: a Ranger, Paladin, Soul Weaver, and even a Dragonlord. But he had also learned Necromancy, and even stained his hands by becoming a Deathknight against the wishes of his friends.

Those times were in the past now, he wouldn't make those mistakes again.

With that thought his vision went white as he was brought back to the real shop, he appeared in the middle of the room and quickly noticed Falwynn standing awkwardly in front of Ellial.

Ellial's expression was one of slight annoyance, but it changed when she noticed Brent was back in the room.

"Tough time? I haven't seen you this beat up in a while."

Brent's hand went to his side and came back red, he'd have to deal with that soon. Falwynn turned around when she heard Ellial speak, she saw his wound and bloody hand.

In a moment she was beside him, catching Brent off guard. It was almost as if she had teleported, " _Maybe I can use that when training her_."

Her hand went to a small punch behind her back and she pulled out a health potion, Brent stopped her though before she could give it to him.

"I'll be fine, you need to save those for yourselves. Now that you're here we're going to find out just how strong you are."

Hearing that Falwynn finally got to ask, "Just what exactly is this place? And where did you come from?"

Brent just laughed, the same kind that he always seemed to do when asked a question like that. He just walked over to Falwynn and put his arm around her shoulder, turning her back towards Ellial.

"I'd like you to meet Falwynn my new Apprentice, she'll be coming around with me a lot in the next two months. I hope you two got off to a good start?" Brent said hopefully.

He honestly didn't expect the fierceness of the glare Ellial sent towards Falwynn, neither for her to actually blush and look towards the ground.

Brent's confusion was shown clearly on his face, "Ok, what did I miss?"

End Notes 

and that what I've got so far, I know what I want to do for the later half, so I will try to get it out as soon as possible. Let me know what you guys think in the reviews


	4. Chapter 4

Authors notes 

All aspects and Lore belong to AE, i just made the MC

ok so here is the rest of the chapter, I hope you guys don't mind the wait. This is my first attempt at writing combat so please let me know what you think, my other question is who does everyone like the current speed of the fic? should I make longer chapters that will take more time to write or should I stick to what I have?

Also let me know what you all think of the humor, I want to know if anyone actually finds some of these scenes funny. Anyways, with that on to the fic!

Chapter 4: From the Fire to the Forge

Falwynn never liked being laughed at, much less by people who she wanted to respect her. That was probably the biggest reason for why she wished Fiamme would come down and make her spontaneously combust. Now why would she want that to happen?

Brent was bent over with his hands on his stomach laughing, still not caring that he had 3 ragged gashes carved into his side.

His laugh was rich and deep, as if it was coming from somewhere deep within his chest. Worst of all it was directed at her and Ellial's explanation.

Finally, after one last chuckle Brent managed to get control of himself. The amusement was still obvious on his face, "Trust me Ellial, Falwynn wasn't dropped on her head as a child. She's just a little shy, I promise you she doesn't have any problems speaking."

His eyes moved over to his embarrassed Apprentice, the humor in his eyes just made Falwynn want to strangle him even more.

Instead she turned back to the shop keeper, making sure not to lower her eyes towards the gaping hole in Ellial's shirt. "That's right, I'm very sorry that I kept staring at you. I promise it won't happen again in the future."

The Owner just kept a straight face, not showing much emotion, "see that it doesn't, I don't appreciate the attention."

Falwynn fought down the blush again, not wanting it to appear on her face again. Ellial could say whatever she wanted, but that shirt was going to get her **a lot** of attention.

Seeing that his Apprentice had been embarrassed enough for the moment, Brent motioned towards a deck of cards that Ellial had put down. She understood his meaning and stuck her hand out, "that will be 50 gold pieces."

Brent pulled out a small sized sack from his bag of holding and placed it on the table, Ellial grabbed it and placed the sack somewhere behind the desk. She then took the deck and began to shuffle the cards, once she had done so to her satisfaction she split the deck in half. Then she moved one of the halves off to the side, taking the other half she began to shuffle again, she did this twice more until she had only 9 cards left. She then laid out each card until there were 2 rows of 4, with one final card in between.

With that all done she then placed her hands on either side of the cards, her expression now was almost a sadistic smirk. "Pick two cards, any cards, and they can even be the same one" Falwynn felt a shiver go through her spin for some reason at those words.

She looked back at Brent one more time to see if he would give anything away, but his expression was still the same, a slight smile with a hint of amusement in his eye.

Her eyes went back to the cards, she quickly noticed that each card had a different element on it represented by one of the elemental orbs. The 9th card showed all of the elemental orbs floating around a center point in a circle.

Finally, she pointed to the cards with the elemental orbs for fire and stone. she wasn't yet sure what this had to do with training but from the wounds Brent already took, along with his advice to keep her potions to herself, she was worried.

The widening of both the smirk on Ellial's face and the eyes of Brent didn't help to calm her fears.

With that her vision flashed white, when she was able to see again she realized that she was in the same room, only that it had changed.

The desks were gone, as well as Ellial, along with all of the weapons and other items that had been around the store. Falwynn's confusion continued to grow until she felt hands on her shoulders spinning her around to face the opposite end of the empty store.

Or at least, it should have been empty.

What she saw in front of her nearly stopped her heart, towering at what must be 10ft tall was a monstrosity made from lava and stone. The magma dripped down to the ground through the gaps in the stone frame that made up the bulk of the monster's body, pooling onto the floor and melting the stone around it. Where its eyes should have been there was just empty sockets that held bright yellow fire, they stared down at her with a blazing hate she hadn't ever experienced before.

She was reminded that Brent was here when she felt the hands on her shoulders give her a light squeeze, he was obviously here to help her. Her heart began to settle at the realization, but it froze again after hearing his next sentence.

"This might be a bit harder then I first thought it would be, but we can work with this. Now just remember, rule number one of being a hero: Don't let the bad guy hit you, so I hope you can dodge!"

With that she felt the hands leave her shoulders, and the monster charged at her.

*meanwhile*

Brent couldn't help but cringe as he distanced himself from Falwynn, and he had to supress his desire to rush in and defend her. While he would have never wanted her to fight against something like a Bassault for her first real fight, but this was supposed to be a test. Sometimes you aren't prepared for what you'll find out in the wild, this was a lesson she needs to learn.

He had to repeat himself several times because of the scream Falwynn let out as she dove to the side, just barely avoiding the Bassaults deadly charge.

She came up fast though which was good, she had a fast reaction time which could save her life down the road. Her armour was also light enough that it didn't restrict her movements, so she definitely wasn't a Warrior, that wasn't as much of a set back as it would have been a few years ago.

While Brent had originally been a Warrior himself, he had been trained in enough styles that he could fill almost any role. And since Falwynn already used ranged weapons he planned to train her as a Ranger. Still, it couldn't hurt to teacher her how to use a sword or how to manipulate magic.

Falwynn ran in the opposite direction of the Bassualt, probably hoping to build some distance between the two so that her crossbow could be more effective. It was a good strategy, especially considering that as far as she knew the monster had to be close to her in order to do damage.

To bad that the Bassualt was also a ranged fighter.

Almost as if commanded by Brent's thought, the creature let out two blasts of lava in Falwynn's direction. The lava ate away at the walls and floor that were in front of his Apprentice, who skidded to a stop just in front of the new raging fire. He saw her look around panicked before she let off one of her bolts towards the Bassualt, after she fired she turned and ran again, this time keeping her eyes on the monster.

The bolt she had fired struck the stones that made up the chest, each of which Brent new was a foot thick, as expected the bolt bounced off doing nothing.

Brent knew that he would have to jump in soon, Falwynn wasn't ready for this kind of monster yet and he should have already stopped this as soon as he realized what cards his apprentice was going to pick. She was terrified and that wasn't her fault because she didn't have the right equipment, but luckily he wasn't so handiecapped.

In a moment the Soul Claws switched on, he conjured Ice into the gems that were infused into his gauntlets and the color turned a whitish blue. Blades of Ice began to shoot out of the gauntlet, starting at the elbow and going all the way around the hand. He quickly used Meditation to refill some of his mana, followed by an Aegis afterwards. The large shield with his friend's sigil appeared in front of him, followed by hundreds of smaller shields that flowed out from the edges of the large one.

With that done he charged forward, " _I might as well have some fun and show off a bit, she's going to be mad when this is over_." Hopefully she didn't freak out too much.

*Meanwhile*

" _ **HOLY SHIT!**_ " thought Falwynn as she dodged another stream of lava, this one closer then any of the others had come to hitting her.

" _I swear when this is over I'm going to kill him for leaving me to fight this thing on my own!_ "

The moment she realized that her bolts weren't doing any damage she stopped firing, her best shot had managed to imbed a bolt in the monster's eye socket. It had just burned in the fire and turned to ash, her prized crossbow was even more useless now then it was when she fought against Fangblade.

After her last one was destroyed she built a new one, this time she set in a second trigger that fired a second bolt. She'd basically managed to cram 2 crossbows together, allowing her to react to how her opponents tried to avoid her first shot. But against an enemy like this it didn't matter if she shot him a hundred times, she just wouldn't be able to do any damage.

She was also slowly running out of room to run, as she dashed to avoid another attack she jumped over a heaping pile of magma. If any of this touched her then she would be either dead or crippled, where was Brent? He had been behind her at some point but after running around so much she had lost track of him.

As the monster raised its hand again to hurl lava towards her, a large shard of ice shot up from the ground and encased the back-left leg.

The Bassualt stalled in its attack and turned to look at its leg, in that moment dozens of chains exploded out of the ground and ensnared the monster. Its massive bulk struggled against the magic, but the chains were holding at least for now.

Falwynn spotted Brent as he appeared in mid air behind the creature, his cloak billowed out around him and his hands were encased in larges shards of ice. A wide grin across his face as he looked at the monster that had been just about to incinerate her. He somehow managed to dash forward while still in mid air, slashing downwards with one of his gauntlets, where the ice met the stone and lava that made up the Bassualt it recoiled in pain.

As soon as he landed on the ground he dashed back behind the monster, slashing at the legs on the right side this time which brought it to the ground. A blue chain shot out of the palm of Brent's hand and encircled one of the large horns on it's head, using it to pull himself back up into the air and towards the Bassualt's face.

Even though it was bound by chains the Bassualt tried to swing in Brent's direction, the movement forced him to let go of the chain and roll underneath the arm. He shot up to his feet as fast as he could from his roll before creating more chains in his hands, he spun on his heels and swung with both chains extended. At the tip of each chain was a large spike made of the same ice shards that covered Brent's gauntlets, they slashed towards the monster and left two large cuts across its chest. Following through with the spin he went for another attack with the two chains, this time he aims higher.

One of his spikes cuts deep into its shoulder, with ice starting to spread to the nearby stone along the wound. While the other manages to strike the head, this time the damage was much more visible. The ice cleaved through the jaw of the monster and through one of its eyes, and from the wound sprouted even more ice shards. Shockingly enough it refused to melt even against the heat coming from within the monster, clearly this wasn't just ordinary ice.

While the Bassualt was reeling from the pain, Brent landed in front of his apprentice. It reminded Falwynn of the tournament, this was just another fight she wasn't prepared for, against an opponent she couldn't be expected to beat.

Her hands were clenched so tightly she could feel her fingers digging into her palms even through the leather. She hated being like this, wasn't the whole point of this apprenticeship supposed to be about getting stronger? Or learning some kind of lesson? What was she supposed to learn from this?

Her eyes dropped to the ground, " _Damn it, how many more times am I going to need to be saved by someone_ "

"It's not your fault"

Those 4 words caused her to look back up, Brent was still facing towards the monster, which seemed to be breaking out of the chains that bound it. But none of that mattered because Brent, and by proximity her, were surrounded by glowing Blue runes and sigils. Multiple magic circles floated around them and were spread underneath them, Brent was standing straight with one arm raised towards the sky, his other held close to his chest.

A single magic circle appeared on the ceiling about the monster, it slowly grew in size until it was bigger then the Bassualt.

"I should have warned you before you picked the cards, that was my mistake and I hope you won't hold it against me." She couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling, she didn't know how or why but just knew. Some how that made her feel slightly better, at least he hadn't scolded her for not being able to do more damage before having to step in.

With that said Brent lowered his hand and large beams of arcane energy began to rain down from the portal above the Bassualt, they exploded on impact and sent dust and chunks of stone flying everywhere.

Falwynn grabbed her cloak and used it to cover her face, waiting a few seconds to let the dust pass before lowering it back to her side. What she saw was a very large and deep hole in the ground, bits and pieces of the Bassualt were spread throughout the crater.

With the monster dead Brent turned to his Apprentice, before she could talk however he raised his hand to stop her.

"I know your probably angry, and you have a right to be, but I want you to understand that I go up against things like this all the time. It's ok that you're not at that level yet, and I promise in a week or two's time you'll be able to hold your own against monsters like that."

That made Falwynn pause, could that really happen? She didn't doubt that she could eventually do it, but to do it in just 2 weeks? That didn't seem possible, she was about to say just that when her vision flashed white and she was back in the regular shop.

*meanwhile*

When the two of them appeared back in the real shop Brent motioned towards Ellial, "I need to talk to Ellial really quick, head outside and wait for me. I promise I won't be to long and that after we will go to the Soul Forge to see about getting you some new equipment." He tried to smile in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, sadly it seemed to work on Falwynn just as well as it had on Aegis.

Falwynn still had a troubled expression but nodded and moved to leave the shop. He knew that she stilled blamed herself, one small pep talk wasn't going to change her entire perspective. He hoped that she would come around soon, especially since he only had two months to teacher her before he'd be gone.

After Falwynn had left the shop Brent approached Ellial, he saw her smirk and gave her a disapproving look. He knew she was upset about Falwynn starring at her earlier, but this kind of attitude was unexpected coming from the shop owner. "What exactly did Falwynn do to make you so angry? And don't give me that same shit you said earlier, we both know that she's not stupid so that can't be what's bothering you."

Ellial just put her elbows on the table, the act caused her top to bunch up around her exposed chest. She wasn't doing it intentionally, but Brent could see what might have left his apprentice speechless. He just gave her a Leveled stare, now that he had turned his eyes back on her face he saw the amusement in them.

"Can't I just have a little bit of fun with the noobie? Remember all the times I used to fluster Ash when you brought him by?" she said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

Brent thought back to the good old days, Ash really did use to get flustered at the slightest show of skin.

"that may have been funny, but I'd appreciate it if you looked out for Falwynn when she comes by. Don't let her make any choices like she did today, if I hadn't of been there with her she would have died."

Ellial just rolled her eyes, but followed it up with a nod, "fine I can do that, but only when you're not around, she's got to take care of herself at some point."

With that settled Brent exited the shop, on his way down he saw Falwynn pacing back and forth at the end of the stairs. A quick plan flashed through his mind, after all Ellial wasn't the only one that like to mess with people for fun.

When Falwynn finally saw Brent she stopped fidgeting and pacing around, but she out right froze at the look of his face.

Disapproval was clear to see, with just a hint of anger. What was worse was that that disapproval seemed aimed at her, but what had she done? He had just been telling her that she wasn't at fault for failing against the giant fire monster.

When Brent finally stood in front of her she was reminded of just how much taller he was then her. When he spoke his voice was stern, "Ellial told me what really happened when you entered the store, and while I don't believe its my business to get involved with your private affairs, I do have to say im disappointed in you."

Falwynn just looked up at him, she had no idea what he was talking about? What did Ellial tell him? And why would it involve her "private affairs", " _Who even talks like that?_ "

Brent continued on when she didn't say anything back to him, "I mean, I don't mind if you attracted to women, but you can't just go around blatantly starring at another women's chest. Especially when they ask you to stop, a hero's supposed to be better then that."

With every word that came out of Brent's mouth the color began to drain out of Falwynn's face. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, " _Attracted to what?!, what the hell did that lady tell him!_ "

She franticly started waving her hands in front of her as if it could ward off the accusations, "I swear I'm not a lesbian! I'm attracted to guys!" yelled Falwynn, so loudly that several pedestrians nearby all turned to look at her curiously.

Her panic was broken by the sound of outrageous laughter coming from Brent, who was once again bent over laughing. When he straightened up he had tears in his eyes which he whipped away, "I can't believe you bought that, your face was so pale haha" said Brent.

Falwynn just glared at him with as much hatred as she could, "I'm guessing that you do this to a lot of people, you wouldn't be responsible for the horrible apron I saw Aegis wearing this morning?"

Another round of booming laughter was her answer.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: A much needed upgrade

" _I knew buying that apron would turn out to be worth it._ " Thought Brent as the he and his Apprentice walked towards the SoulForge. His side hurt like hell from all the laughing he'd done in the past few minutes, Falwynn was just to good a target when it came to little jokes. The fact that Aegis loved the apron made it even better, " _And to think it only cost me 10 gold haha_ "

Another chuckle slipped past his lips and his side flared up again in pain. At least it wasn't bleeding anymore thanks to a potion, and he could always just grab another one back at his house.

Falwynn glared up at him, "You deserve whatever pain you're in right now, I can't believe you said that to me." She said with a blush on her face as she crossed her arms across her chest.

An apologetic smile appeared on Brent's face, his eye's closed as he scratched the back of his head. "I'm sorry I did that ok, but come on, it was hilarious!"

the glare intensified, Brent was honesty impressed by how sharp her brown eye's looked.

He finally looked at her seriously, all traces of humor gone. "I am sorry Falwynn, and I promise I won't do anything like that for the rest of the day." He then winked at her and pointed to the right, when she looked over she could see the SoulForge. Brent started walking towards the font door with Falwynn two steps behind him, he stopped and turned to his Apprentice to give her one final warning and some words of encouragement.

"Remember, Lanrete can be a bit rude but don't take anything he say's personally. And considering that you already know your way around a forge, eventually you could ask him to teach you."

Falwynn tried to imagine what a SoulForge would look like, she imagined a massive anvil covered with runes. Perhaps there would be special gloves needed for the forging process, she had seen several pairs during her childhood in the dwarven kingdoms. She couldn't imagine how a soul could be used though, she had never witnessed any kind of magic that could do something like that before.

Her express finally changed from an angry glare to a nervous frown, "are you sure that's a good idea? Smiths don't just take on anyone as an apprentice. And besides, I'm already learning from you aren't I? why shouldn't you teach me how to do it?"

Brent just gave her a small smile, "you can never have to many teachers, I've taken every opportunity to learn when I can. Take this as another important lesson on how to be a hero, knowledge is power. The more you know the more options you have, that way you will never be at a disadvantage. I wouldn't be where I am right now without my friends and teachers, that's why you shouldn't limit yourself to just me."

Falwynn's expression had softened as Brent gave his speech, he was right, and she wouldn't deny that. Not after everything he had just said, she took a moment to herself and imagined what she could look like in a couple of years.

Maybe she would be a great Archer, able to blend into the forest and take out enemies without a sound. That would be pretty cool, or maybe she would learn how to use a sword and be a warrior. Anything was possible, she might even learn a thing or two about magic in the next few weeks. The very idea of it excited her and a large smile spread across her face, the future was definitely going to be interesting.

Brent saw the smile and couldn't contain the sense of pride he felt, it seemed like he was making up for what happened before. Maybe things would turn out ok in the near future, but first they had to deal with the SoulForge.

Brent then turned towards the door and opening it, he held it open and motioned with his other hand.

"Ladies first"

Falwynn looked at him with a smile still on her face and a hand on her hip, "Thank you, but your laying it on a little thick right now. I'm not angry anymore so ease up." Having said that she walked passed him and entered the store.

Brent just tried to chuckle again, but it was weak compared to his earlier ones. He then followed behind his apprentice and took in the look of awe on her face as she saw the SoulForge for the first time. To be fair, he'd been shocked as well his first time.

*Meanwhile*

Falwynn felt a little smug as she passed Brent and entered the store, she'd finally managed to call him out on something. It wasn't much, but it made her feel slightly better about what had happened before.

Before she could continue that train of thought however she had to stop and take in the main part of the forge.

The entire floor was covered in a massive and complex runic array that surrounded a large smelter. The amazing part was the set of floating magic circles that hoovered above, blue flames smouldered underneath, ready to be used to forge a new piece of armor or weapon.

A sphere of runes floated over a strange pattern sounded by the lower magic circle, inside the sphere was a twisted pattern of triangles that floated around inside. Falwynn was completely in awe, she had never seen something like this. The dwarves had their own techniques, but this was unlike anything she had ever even heard of.

Falwynn turned her gaze towards the rest of the room and saw an impressive anvil in the corner. The anvil looked exactly like she imagined at least, it was covered in numerous magic runes that she couldn't decipher. Standing behind the anvil was a short man with dark skin and hair that was even stranger then her own bright green locks. How was his hair strange you might ask?

It was glowing a ton of blue that matched the scythe he carried at his side.

Much like the last shop owner she had visited, this one was wearing a shirt that could barely be called a shirt. It was yellow and white, the "shirt" was draped over his shoulders leaving a rather impressive set of abs on display for anyone to see. Falwynn was starting to think that this was going to be a pattern amongst the residents of Ravenloss.

The rest of his outfit was black, on top of the "shirt" Lanrete was wearing a scarf that rapped around his shoulders, as well as a hat that covered his glowing hair.

Behind the shop owner was a set of empty weapons hanging on the wall, they each had handles and guards but the rest of the weapons were a translucent white.

Brent approached Lanrete with a wave, the short man made no motion to return it and instead had a blank look on his face. He then let out a sign before finally talking, "Hello, Brent. Welcome to the SoulForge."

"Hey Lanrete, I was hoping we could forge something for my Apprentice here, her name is Falwynn."

He then motioned for her to introduce herself, she gave a slight bow to the smaller man. "Hello, your forge is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. How does it work?"

He just let out another sigh, he seemed to do that a lot, finally he set his eyes on Falwynn and began to explain.

"SoulSmiths are weavers who don't want to weave. Instead, we use tools to bind Elemental Spirits into objects. Sentient objects. Weapons that act according to the wielder. Accessories that react to the emotions of the wearer. Yes Elemental Spirits were people once. No, this is not unethical. (You were gonna ask that, weren't you?) We use _undeveloped_ Elemental Spirits. Unlucky sods who died and didn't have the will to head on to their lives. Weavers who, after death stayed in the "larval" stage of the spirit.

Real talk, we're doing them a favour. Without us, they'd either get absorbed by corrupted elemental spirits or just simply fade away. We're giving them a purpose. So, nothing unethical about it."

He then moved back towards the weapon racks behind him, "these are called Spirit Castes, I use them to mold the shape of the weapon. Each one costs a thousand gold, but first, do you have an elemental spirit?" said Lanrete with a raised eyebrow.

Brent nodded his head and patted his bag of holding, Falwynn had an idea of what an elemental spirit might look like. Probably a small version of the elementals that could be found across the world, but when did he go out and get one?

Lanrete just moved his expectant gaze towards Falwynn, "well, which one do you want?"

Taken aback slightly at the invitation, she looked at all the different casts that hung on the wall. She looked back towards Brent to see if he would have anything helpful to say, but he just had a curious look in his eyes. he was probably curious about which one that she would pick as well.

Again, she looked at her options, there were weapons of all kinds hanging on the wall, from elaborate swords to tall staves and daggers all in between. The staves were pointless to her since she had never used one before in her life, so she only focused on the other weapons. There was one type that was lacking however, "I don't see any kind of bow or ranged weapon, can you not make one in a SoulForge?"

Lanrete's expression didn't change in the slightest, maybe he was used to these kinds of questions.

"While the potential is there I've never been able to find a spirit willing to shape itself into a bow, I've always found it easier to forge them into more solid and simple weapon like a swords or dagger."

She took one more look at the elaborate sword casts behind the SoulSmith, simple indeed.

If she was going to learn to use a melee weapon though, she knew that a sword would be best. And since this would be her first-time learning, she really did choose one of the simpler sword designs.

A single edged blade that widened as it got farther from the hilt before coming together at a sharp point. When she motioned towards this one Lanrete took it off the wall without a word, and brought it towards the anvil. He looked expectantly at Brent and held out his hand, palm open.

The Hero went into his bag of holding and pulled out a large bag that she knew was filled with gold. Lanrete took it and dropped the bag off to the side of the room, when he came back he took the sword cast to the magical smelter.

He raised the Spirit Cast towards the magic circles and let go of the hilt, surprisingly enough it didn't fall to the floor. Instead, it began to float towards the center of the magic sphere. At that moment Brent walked over to the forge as well, it was at this point that she noticed a small green orb that seemed to be pulsing in his hand. He handed the orb to Lanrete who held in his hands and closed his eyes, a magic sphere much like the one floating above the forge appeared around his hands.

Two hammers appeared on either side of the sphere before they swung downwards and struck the sphere, he then thrust his hands forwards towards the sword. The green orb flew towards the Spirit Cast, as it made contact there was a bright flash of light. When it faded the Spirit Cast glowed green momentarily before sinking into the forge, the magic circles dropped down onto of the forge and began to spin at a slower pace.

He then looked towards Falwynn and said with the same tired voice as before, "Anymore questions?"

Falwynn thought her first one would be rather obvious, "what did you just do, and how long will it take for the sword to be finished?"

"The sword won't take to long to finish, the forge does most of the work by itself and I'm rather proud of how efficient it is. As for what I just did, I used a small ritual to unlock the spirits potential. This is what allows the weapon to become unique and regain some of its personality."

Her eyes widened at that, "Personality? You mean the sword will be alive? That's incredible!"

Lanrete didn't seem impressed by her praise, "What part didn't you understand about Sentient objects"

Falwynn fell silent after that, she realized now what Brent meant when he said that Lanrete could be rude. However, there couldn't be any doubt about his skill. Maybe she could introduce him to her father? She was sure he would love to learn a thing or two about SoulForging.

Her eyes then moved up to look at Brent, who had a smug smile on his face. "when did you have time to get that? I thought you went straight to the Card Shoppe after you left the house?"

He crossed his arms across his chest which showed off his impressive Soul Claws, "I talked to Yashta last night before we went over to Aegis's house. I asked him if he could find one for me in the caves nearby, I said that it would be a gift for you. Funny enough when I left the house this morning Yashta was waiting for me nearby, he'd gone out immediately after we'd all gone to bed."

He saw her surprised look and continued on before she could ask any questions, "Yashta's great like that haha, I'll explain more about that later. But do you know what the best part of all this is?" he said with a grin so wide it was almost vicious.

Falwynn's confusion just got worse, what was he talking about?

"It's green haha!" he said with a loud laugh, the deadpan expression on Falwynn's face just making the whole thing funnier in his eyes.

His laugh lasted only for a few seconds this time before he quieted down, yes green was definitely her color. And he was going to run with it, he couldn't wait to show Robina his new Apprentice, she had some new competition for being the best green archer.

*Time Skip*

After 10 minutes or so of small talk the forging process was almost complete, the magic circles floated back up to their earlier positions and the new sword floated out of the flames. The handle of the Spirit Cast looked unchanged, however, the blade that had previously been translucent white was now an inferno of green.

Lanrete picked up a pair of tongs and a hammer from beside the forge, each tool was made from a strange metal that was a bluish color with a pink outline along the edges. Using the tongs, he grabbed the hilt of the sword, using them to carry it over to the anvil where they had been standing before. There was a magic circle etched into the ground around the anvil, a ripple of color flowed out from the forge to the designs all across the floor. Falwynn had to compare it to when a stone is dropped into water, causing a ripple to spread much further then one would expect.

Lanrete laid the moving blade across the anvil before studying it with his eyes, he looked at the blade hard for a few seconds before the swung the hammer once at the sword. When the blow landed the blade stopped moving so erratically, slowing until it took a shape similar to the Spirit Cast she had chosen.

The short smith turned towards Falwynn and held out the sword to her, hilt first. Slowly, she took it with a loose grip, she expected it to be hot considering what it had looked like just a little while ago. To her surprise however, it was cold to the touch, almost as if it had just come out of an Ice box. Once she took a tighter grip on the sword hilt she immediately felt the cold creep into her brain, the sensation was uncomfortable at first. But after a moment it changed to a slightly warmer presence, one that seemed to calm her. It was at that moment she felt a new presence in her brain react, she felt a confusion that was wasn't her own, followed by a calmness that spread to her shortly after.

Whatever she was feeling must have made her expression change because Brent looked at her with slight concern, "Are you alright Falwynn? Can you feel the weapon?"

Falwynn just starred at him with her eyes wide once again, she would never get used to craziness that kept happening. "Is this the spirit? What does it mean?"

"The elemental spirit is becoming aware of it's new form, soon it will be able to communicate to you in some way. The more you connect with the spirit the easier it will get to communicate with it." Said Lanrete off to the side without looking at them. He was cleaning his tools when he finally looked up at them, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Brent shook his head and gave his thanks for the service, he then took Falwynn by the shoulder and began walking her out of the store.

She looked down at the impressive sword she now had, it was bigger then she thought it would be. She then realized that she didn't have a sheath or any other way of carrying the sword around besides holding it in her hand. Almost as if reading her mind, which it very well might have, the green blade shrunk until it was just the hilt. A small green glow came from the cracks, but now it could easily be placed in one of her belt loops without it causing a problem.

Realizing that the sword was trying to be helpful she gave a silent thank you to the sword, a sense of acceptance and gratitude followed her praise. At least the sword seemed like it was happy, Falwynn couldn't wait to see what else would happen with it.

The two of them left the store and began to head back to Aegis's house. When the two of them entered through the door Falwynn wondered if Aegis would still be wearing his pink apron. Luckily, he wasn't, and instead was floating just a few feet off the ground reading a book. His eyes seemed to light up again at the sight of Brent and Falwynn, and a smile appeared on his face. "How did the training go? I hope Brent wasn't to harsh on you your first time?"

Before Falwynn could even start to talk about the giant fire monster Brent started running for the stairs, "Things went great, Falwynn even got a new sword. I'm just going to grab the thing really quick then I'll be right back down."

The two-other people in the room just looked at him in confusion, Falwynn then asked once Brent was gone, "What thing was he talking about?"

Aegis just shrugged, "He has a lot of things in his room, I'm not very sure what he meant."

His eyes trailed down to the inactive sword tucked into one of her belt loops, Falwynn realized what he was looking at, so she took out the hilt. A warm feeling spread from her hand all the way up to her brain again, the sensation being much more pleasant then the first time. The sword remained inactive and she wondered how to make the blade appear, as she began to think about it the green glow brightened momentarily. Then, a single pulse of energy came from the hilt and the green energy snapped out.

The energy quickly formed into the single edged sword she had picked out, it was magnificent in her mind. A wave of appreciation flowed into her consciousness, as if the spirit inside the sword wanted to convey its thanks for the compliment.

Aegis was looking at the blade just as much as Falwynn, he could tell that the Elemental Spirit inhabiting it belonged the realm of nature. It was too underdeveloped to have a name of its own yet, but either Falwynn would come up with her own or the Spirit would mature into its own identity.

Before either of them could comment anymore on the subject, Brent came flying down the stairs. He ran over to Falwynn and showed her a small piece of stone that was no bigger then her thumb, on the stone was a runic array that centered around a blue gem set into the middle of the stone.

"This is a key stone, its used by anyone who purchases property from one of Cysero's talking orbs. Now that you've got a better weapon you'll need so new armor to go with it. My old house is still around up on the surface, I use it mostly for storage right now so that's where all my spare sets of armor are. We'll make a quick stop there before we head out to look for a job to do."

With that said he held out one of his armoured hands for her to take, obviously the stone would only work on those who held on to it or were attached to the person holding it.

She waved goodbye to Aegis and gave his farewells to the two of them, with that done Brent pressed down on the blue gem. A blight flash blinded Falwynn momentarily, and when the spots finally left her vision she could see that she was standing in front of a red and white two-story house. All around there were trees, meaning that they were in some kind of forest, probably in Greenguard still if she had to guess.

Brent swept his arms out in an attempt at showmanship, "welcome Falwynn to my home away from home."

The introduction was short, but she had already known where they were going, she was about to start walking towards the door when a heavy thud resounded behind her. She spun on her heels quickly so that she could see whatever had made that noise, which meant that she found herself starring into a large pair of red eyes that promised death.

The scream she let out was completely appropriate from her perspective, the laughter from Brent was not appreciated in the slightest.


	6. Chapter 6

Authors Notes

All aspects belong to AE, I just made the MC

Hello everyone, i hope it hasn't been to long since my last update. I had a lot of trouble with this chapter, I've been trying to focus on university and because of that I've been pushing my writing to the back burner. But, this was a chapter I really wanted to get finished because it introduces some of my own opinions into the fic.

I will explain more at the end of the chapter, but first I need to address something because I had a few people ask this question now.

As of right now I will be focusing almost entire on this fic because I don't to divide my attention in to many directions. So to answer the question no I will not be doing any crossovers anytime soon. The other stories that I want to eventually write are the following:

Naruto - a fic that focuses on an unforgiving protagonist that was neglected by his family, one where a good person makes all the wrong choices for all the right reasons.

Destiny 2 - A short story about several guardians who lost their fire teams during the battle for the last city and how they deal with it.

Dragonfable - a series of one shots depicting critical moment in my MC's life as an adventurer

besides those three I don't have anything else planned right now, all of those stories are at least partially thought out.

with that said, lets get on with the story!

Chapter 6: Dark Reminders

Dragons were one of the greatest creatures on Lore, anyone who had seen a real dragon would talk about the impressive wingspan or the aura of dread one feels after witnessing a breath attack. Most of these people would be talking about a full-grown dragon, whither they had been that size for hundreds of years or it had just recently grown to that size. For most people it would be impossible to tell, but as one of the few DragonLords on Lore, Brent did know the difference.

A full-grown dragon will be at least 100 years old, they will have been at their full size for at least half that time, meaning that they know their own limitations and have likely learned to compensate for them. Adult Dragons weren't stupid either, they knew magic and had knowledge that takes a lifetime for a man to develop.

It was the younger ones that were easiest to hunt, even more so then a hatchling. A young dragon was around 50 years old and just starting to grow to their full size, they could be uncoordinated and clumsy, but they will be arrogant because of their new strength. That had been one of Galanoth's first lessons as a Dragonslayer, to turn a mighty creatures own power into its greatest weakness.

That had been an interesting conversation, especially considering that Galanoth had just finished telling him about how he wanted to kill a Dragonlord.

Then again, Zoom had started out wanting to kill him too, and now they were good friends. Brent thought hard for a moment, a lot of his friends had started out wanting to kill him actually, he wondered if that meant something.

His thoughts were broken by a deep raspy sound that he recognized as a dragon's laughter, of course the noise just sent Falwynn stumbling backwards towards him. She didn't understand that the sudden scare was just another joke, " _I should probably stop this before she runs off screaming_."

He placed a calming hand on Falwynn's shoulder, she looked over her shoulder at Brent with fear in her eyes. To be fair, his dragon was pretty intimidating, especially since he had started really growing.

"Aright Al, that's enough. You've scared my Apprentice enough as it is."

'Al' just snorted back at me, twin streams of fire coming out of his nostrils as he made the noise.

Al was his dragon and had been with him almost since the beginning of his journey, when he had first hatched his scales had been green, but over time they had changed to an inky black. Now his scales were as dark as the void, and a small fire burned between the horns resting on his head like a crown. His eyes had stayed the same color since his hatching, a red that was the same color as freshly spilt blood. These features added to his intimidating nature as a dragon, the fact that he wasn't small anymore just made it so much more terrifying to his enemies.

Before Brent had been frozen in ice for 7 years Al had been small enough to ride on his shoulders without much of a problem. Now Al was big enough for Brent to ride him as evident by the leather saddle strapped to his back. Right now Al was in the transition stage between hatchling and a young dragon, he was slightly bigger then a griffon on all fours, and was half as tall as a house when standing up. Falwynn would just see a dragon, one that was a lot bigger then she was, she couldn't see the weaknesses that stood out to anyone with an in-depth knowledge of dragons.

Al's wings may have grown into an impressive wingspan, but the muscles weren't yet strong enough to carry much else besides his own weight. He had been able to carry Brent will relative ease for an hour, but they wouldn't be flying across the continent anytime soon without the use of a dragon amulet. There was no way that he would be able to carry both Brent and Falwynn for any good length of time.

Al's tail was also an issue, it was nearly as long as the rest of his body and it tended to move on its own accord from time to time. Al wasn't yet used to its length, so it had a tendency to hit whatever unfortunate object or person was behind him.

These faults didn't make Al any less dangerous, while his wing muscles weren't fully developed yet his legs were the most powerful part of his body. They rippled with hard muscle at the slightest movement, and Brent knew from first hand experience that Al could run faster then any horse. And one could never forget about the deadly breath attacks all dragons were famous for, whither they breathed clouds of poison or torrents of flame.

Falwynn turned to him a bewildered expression, "I thought your dragon was small? All the stories I've heard say that his natural size wasn't any bigger then a Tog?"

Al's large red eyes squinted at Falwynn at the word Tog, before anything (or anyone) could be set on fire Brent motioned for Falwynn to follow him into the house.

"those stories happened 7 years ago, just because I was frozen in ice doesn't mean that he stopped growing." He said as he opened the front door.

The two stepped inside while Al moved back into the forest, as he did he caught the scent of humans and metal. His senses stretched out and he felt a void in the magic that surrounded the perimeter of the house, this worked as an alarm for Brent and his dragon. Normally Al would have let out a roar to let Brent know they were about to be attacked, but he felt like hunting for a little while.

Besides, that Tog comment had started a fire in his gullet, he wanted to burn something.

*Meanwhile*

The door closed with a soft thud as the latched was dropped into place, Falwynn looked around the front entry way of Brent's house. It was surprisingly simple, with the room being mostly empty except for a grey fur rug on the floor, a candle fixture on the way, and a stone column near one of the windows. She assumed that this must have been where he lived before Aegis had his own house, she would have to ask him why he didn't still live here.

She was brought back to the present by Brent's voice, "let me show you around really quick, follow me into the next room."

The two of them walked towards a door made from oak, after opening it Falwynn could see that this was the living room. Another fur rug covered the floor while a white couch was against the wall, a table with two chairs was placed just in front and to the side of the couch. The most interesting part of the room was the banner hanging on the wall and a small worktable beside the couch, the banner was brown and had a picture of a mans face with short white hair and a beard.

On the worktable was another pair of SoulClaws and some tools that she guessed Brent used to maintain them.

Brent moved pasted all of this into the other half of the room, this one filled with cabinets and storage boxes. Across from these was a long wooden counter against a stone backsplash. Light poured in from outside through a window positioned near the storage boxes, before she realized it Brent was holding out some fruit for her to take.

"Have something to eat quick, we'll be getting your armor in a minute and once your ready we're going to start your training immediately." He then motioned towards the cabinets that most likely had more food in them, he then pointed towards another door at the end of the hall.

"I'll be in the next room getting your gear ready, meet me inside once your done eating."

With that said Brent left through the door, and Falwynn quickly went about exploring the kitchen.

*Meanwhile*

As Brent closed the door to his old bedroom he let out a sigh of relief, Falwynn hadn't tried to come in with him right away. This gave him some time to put away the more dangerous weapons and artifacts that he had laying around.

Most of his trophies got moved over to Aegis's house after he was unfrozen, but he kept all of his most powerful weapons and armors here locked away.

There were only a few things left out in the open, including his and Al's old beds, a wooden sign with a large sword stretched from the bottom corner to the top. The most important thing in the room was his Armor Closet, it was a head or two taller then he was and made out of red oak wood and gold plating on the doors. Brent knew that he had to be fast since Falwynn could come in at anytime, he walked over to the Armor Closet and opened the double doors so that he could look inside. From where he was standing Brent could see a long hallway that stretched much further then was physically possible for a closet of this size.

Since this came from Cysero, no one should be surprised that inside the closet was a pocket dimension. One that grew infinitely so long as you continued to put more and more sets of armor inside, it was one of his greatest inventions, and the fact that it kept his house nice and clean was just another bonus.

Making his way down the long hallway, Brent passed several of his old and most used sets of armor and the weapons that went with them.

The Atalean Riftwalker with Transcendence, his Paladin set with Radiant Providence, the DargonSlayer set along with one of Galanoth's Dragon Blades, the list went on and on as he walked. He knew that the Ranger set was near the back because it was one of his older armors, and one he barely used.

As Brent passed by one display hideous laughter suddenly invaded his mind forcing him to pause, he glanced over at the armor stand that proudly displayed one of his darkest memories.

The black and gold armor looked just like it had the last time he wore it, the black plates looked unmarked, as if it had never seen combat before. The gold trim was pristine and looked like something that looked fit for a king, this of course he knew wasn't true. That armor had been bathed in more blood then he was comfortable remembering, and a king was the last person who should be wearing that armor. All the while the crazed laughter continued, never stopping to take a breath or pause in its insanity.

Brent knew of course where the laughter was coming from, his eyes moved over to a medium sized cabinet just off to the left and behind the black and gold armor. Chains were wrapped all around the handles, making it impossible to get a decent grip. Written across the top and bottom of the cabinet were golden sigils meant to keep evil away, in this case it was being used to keep something in.

He quickly turned away to continue his search for the Ranger armor, doing his best to forget about the insane laughter that still filled his head.

That was a lot harder to do then one would expect however, especially when you could recognize the crazed laughter as your own.

*Meanwhile*

After eating a sandwich Falwynn entered the next room that Brent had told her to meet him in. Immediately she noticed a small nest made from straw and stones at the foot of a simple bed, aside from these two things there was only a closet and a sign on the wall. The sign didn't seem to be that important, but the closet definitely was. The wood had a reddish color to it that made her think of red oak, but the gold on the doors it what interested her the most. The gold centered around what appeared to be an overly large Dragon Amulet, the wings of which worked as the door handles.

What surprised her was the Brent was no where to be seen, the door at the end of the room was closed. The only thing that was slightly open was the closet but the idea of Brent hiding in a closet was just to hard for her to believe.

She approached the closet and peeked inside through the small opening, what she saw inside shocked her. The inside of the closet seemed to go on without end, much like a bag of holding, whatever this was it must have cost a fortune to make.

She called out Brent's name to see if he was somewhere inside, a quiet answer was yelled from deep within the closet. The voice was to quiet to make out exactly what was said, but Falwynn recognized that the voice did belong to her teacher. Her curiosity peaked when see looked at the closest armor set which was on the left side of the hallway, it was made up of mostly black and brown leather with bits of red embroidery covering it. Along the sleeves and waist was an obscene number of belts, and the boots looked suspiciously like hooves rather then boots.

Next to the armor was the biggest sword Falwynn had ever seen, the design of the blade was unlike anything she had ever seen in her life. No dwarf or human could have possibly made such an unwieldly weapon, she couldn't even begin to imagine the strength necessary to pick it up, let alone swing it.

It's most impressive feature was that from the cross guard a red glow flowed down the entire length of the blade, giving it a menacing appearance. This didn't look like the kind of weapon a hero was supposed to use, maybe it was a trophy from a previously defeated enemy?

Before her mind could wander to much in one direction, she looked at some of the other sets of armor.

Her eyes were drawn to a display that showed off a set of gold and silver armor, bits of red fabric hung from the waist and the shoulders. From the waist up the armor was covered in golden designs of wings, this looked like it belonged to a warrior of light, or more commonly referred to as a Paladin. This was a set of armor she could picture Brent wearing, his golden eyes would even match most of the armor. Behind the display was a double-bladed spear which, much like the sword she had just seen, was so long she couldn't imagine a single person, including Brent, wielding it effectively.

The blades seemed to glow with a golden light that illuminated the entire display, small white wings rested at the base of each blade. Between them was a black rod with bits of gold built into it, each of these had a red jewel set as close as it could be to the blades while still being inside the gold on the grip.

Falwynn would have continue to inspect more sets as she wondered deeper into the closet when the voice called to her from just a little further down.

The voice sounded almost disembodied, almost as if it had to get through a lot of interference to reach her. She realized that as she moved deeper into the closet the voice became clearer, and that it sounded slightly more like Brent's voice.

As she got closer to the display that the voice was coming from she realized that it wasn't coming from the display itself, but that it had been getting steadily louder in her head as she got closer. By the time she realized this her legs were no longer under her control, and she found herself helplessly following the voices commands.

The scariest thing was that as she got closer the voice took on a more unhuman like tone, until it sounded like a twisted parody of Brent's voice.

" **So** you **'re** the **newest** corpse **in a long line** of **cadavers** that have **surrounded** my **better hal** f, I wo **nder** what he **see's in you**?"

Falwynn tried to open her mouth to scream, whatever this voice was it was dangerous, and she wasn't prepared. Where was Brent? Hadn't he been close by?

"My **better half** is close so **don't worry** , **this is a good thing!** You n **eed** to meet the **REAL Brent!** the **one** who **stood over** a **mountain of bodies** , with **nothing** but a **gleam in his eyes** and **laughter on his lips**. Things are **so much better** when you just **CUT LOOSE!"**

The last two words resounded through her head, causing a sharp pain to shoot from one side of her head to the other. It was as if someone had split her skull in half just by speaking, she wanted to cry as the sense of helplessness began to over take her rational mind.

She'd stopped paying attention to her surroundings once the voice had started talking, which is why didn't notice the black and gold armor that she now stood in front of.

In all her years of life Falwynn had never seen something that filled her with so much dread. If the Paladin armor belonged to a warrior of light, then this belonged to someone that had made darkness their patron. The design even seemed like it was a mockery of the previous, with the gold trim framing the black plate much like the silver had. On each of the large shoulder plates was a red stone surrounded by a black ring, with small strips of red fabric hung from behind the rings. Black chains with barbs wrapped around the bicep of each arm, and the gauntlets ended in sharp claws that looked like they could rip through leather with ease.

The final thing about the armor that unsettled her was the tiny skull that hung from a black chain where the wearers neck would be. What was something like this doing in Brent's house? This went beyond trophies or keeping dangerous artifacts from falling into the wrong hands. Something like this should be destroyed out right, her thoughts were becoming wilder as any sense of calm or control disappeared with the re-emergence of that twisted voice. One that sounded so much like Brent's that it made the whole experience even worse.

" **You want** to **know** why he **hasn't destroyed the armor?** Its **because Brent doesn't want to** , he **knows** that **somewhere** down the road **he'll need me** , **he'll need US!** He **knows** that just **like before** , he **won't be strong enough** , **his compassion will make him weak**. **His love will shatter his soul and bring with it so much SWEET SADNESS!"**

For a moment Falwynn thought it was the armor talking to her, but even with the voice seemingly coming from her head, she got the sense that it was coming from somewhere behind the armor. It was at that moment she saw a cabinet behind the dark armor, one that had been locked tight with chains and what appeared to be magic sigils charged with light.

The voice seemed to grow louder, pounding against the inside of her skull like a smith's hammer would a piece of hot iron.

" **YES,** you will **definitely do** , **maybe together** we can **wake my better half up**. We can go back to the **FUN times we used to have** , **I miss the simple pleasures in life** , like **dancing** and **laughing**. Of course, to do **that** I need **someone to let me out of this annoying box** , **you can let me out here right?** " the voice said with a mocking tone.

" **I'll tell you joke if you do, and trust me** , this is one everyone is just **DYING TO HEAR! HAHAHAHAHA** "

Falwynn felt tears beginning to gather in her eyes, there was so much wrong with that laughter, it sounded to much like the ones she had heard Brent let out just earlier in the day. The only difference was that this one was filled with a twisted sense of humor; how could it sound so much like Brent?

Her arm began to rise against her wishes, reaching towards the cabinet that held whatever horror had stolen control of her body from her.

" **that's it girl** , just a **bit closer**. Wipe away the **disgusting magic** **that keeps me from my other half** , I've waited **so long to be complete again**. **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"**

As her arm reached towards the sigils a metal hand shot out from seemingly no where and yanked her arm away. A surprised yell escaped her lips as her eyes widened in fear, but it disappeared as she saw realized the hand belonged to Brent.

She finally noticed the expression on his face however, it was one she had yet to see, and one she hoped she never saw again. Because where the gentle smile usually rested was a sneer that showed he looked absolutely livid.

*Meanwhile*

Brent was glad that he'd started making his way back to the entrance of the closet, if he had taken just a little bit longer looking for the Ranger armor then something terrible could have happened. As soon as he'd seen a shaking Falwynn holding out her arm towards the Deathknight display he'd reacted, dropping the armor and pulling Falwynn away.

He'd taken one look at the tear streaked face of his Apprentice and his anger had sky rocketed. He glared at the cabinet that held one of his strongest weapons with as much hatred as he could, even if he knew that it was pointless.

The Cabinet began to shake, and the sigils began to glow like small suns, forcing Brent to squint and Falwynn to look away entirely. As the light grew brighter a strangled scream could be heard so loud that Falwynn actually fell to her knees and covered her ears, " **WEILD ME!** "

"No, now go back to sleep" Brent said almost with a whisper, completely opposite to the voice that raged inside his head. The lights began to die down and become barrable, the shaking began to settle, but the laughter never did. As the sounds around him returned to normal he looked down at Falwynn, her terrified face was looking back at him with fear still clearly in her eyes.

He tried to give her one of his warm smiles, but it did nothing to lessen the confusion and terror she obviously felt. Brent knew that the best thing for her right now was to leave the Armor Closet, so he picked up the discarded bits of armor along with the bow and quiver he planned to give his Apprentice.

The two of them then walked as fast as they could without jogging to the exit, all the while cruel laughter continued within Brent's mind. A voice that he recognized as his own, or at least what it had been at one time, spoke one last time before he could shut the doors to the closet.

" **You'll come for me eventually** , we **both know that you will**. And when you do **I will gladly take the pain away** , just like **I did before** , and **this time** I won't let go of you **so easily** "

End Notes

And there you have it! the "little cuddly world breaker" isn't so little or cuddly haha.

Now, to explain one of the most important parts of my story. In DF the weapons all have a level requirement in order for the PC to use them, in my world this is because some weapons have wills of their own. If someone isn't strong enough to use them then one of many bad things will happen, here's a few examples:

Transcendence: a level 60 weapon that even according to the in game description can only be wielded by the "Great", this means that only someone who has gained a lot of physical and mental power can use. If they don't then they wont even be able to pick up the blade, much like Thors hammer you must be deemed worthy by the weapon in order to use it.

Radiant Providence: a level 66 weapon that contains a very powerful Light Spirit, if someone who's will wasn't strong enough tried to pick up the weapon they would begin to burn from the inside out because of the power the Spirit has.

and finally the one you all will undoubtedly be asking about,

Corrupt ShadowReaper of Doom: a level 66 Doom weapon and the finally form of the Doom axe. This was the weapon locked inside the cabinet, and the reason for why it was able to talk is because of extremely powerful Darkness Spirit inside. One that has evolved with the MC as the game progressed, which lead to the development you all saw. More will be explained as the story continues and I hope that what I've written so far isn't confusing, but just so everyone knows, if Falwynn had been able to get her hands on the Doom Axe then she would have been possessed by it. Similar to what happened to Sepulcher when he put on the DoomKnight armor.

If you have any other questions for me please send me a PM, if all you want to do is comment then please leave a review


	7. Chapter 7

Authors Notes:

All aspects belong to AE, I just made the MC

Hey everyone, first off I need to apologies for the long wait. Right now I'm currently in the exam period for my university, and before that I had to very important research papers to do. I kept telling myself that i would work on my story but it never happened, and before I knew it nearly a month had gone by. I hope that you all in joy this chapter, and know that I will update as frequently as I can.

if you have any questions or comments please leave a review,

with that said enjoy the latest chapter.

Chapter 7: Adventuring 101

Never had silence made him feel so uncomfortable, Brent could think of many time when he wished jokes and funny one liners could get him out of a situation.

The echo of a chuckle filled his mind and he shook his head, that way lead to madness.

He needed a distraction, he couldn't imagine what Falwynn was thinking right now but whatever it was it couldn't be good. The set of leather armor he held in his arms was almost forgotten, when he turned to his Apprentice and opened his mouth to speak she stopped him with a raised hand.

"You don't need t explain anything right now, I get that there's somethings I'm not ready to learn yet. Just promise that you'll tell me when that is ok." She said with a small smile, her face and eyes were red from crying, but at least they were dry.

Speechless for a moment he just stared at her, at the rate she was impressing him that time may be a lot sooner then she thinks. Brent then walked over to the bed and placed the individual pieces of the armor.

A pair of green leather boots and gloves side by side, while a green tunic with a brown scarf was next to the pillow. Between these were several belts with different pouches and knives strapped to the flexible leather. However, he didn't lay down the bow, holding it out towards Falwynn, "I'm assuming you know how to use this?" Brent said with a small smile and a raised brow.

The bow was made in a style used by hunters Greenwood and had clearly seen some use many years ago. It was also tall enough that it nearly touched her shoulder, Falwynn could also tell that the draw weight might be to much for her. Still, she took the bow from him and tested the weight. As Falwynn struggled with the draw weight Brent felt a chuckle escape his lips, he didn't actually expect her to use that bow on her first day.

After a few seconds of watching her admirable effort Brent let her know that she could stop.

Falwynn face was slightly red from exertion, but she wasn't breathing hard. Honestly Brent was going to have to ask her if she was ever trained to fight, or if she was entirely self taught. If it was the latter, then she had more potential then a lot of older Heroes that he knew. Her expression showed that she was disappointed that she couldn't properly draw the bow, but Brent was quick to snap her out of it.

"That bow has a draw weight of over 80 pounds, so unless you've been swinging a sword around for a few years or done a lot of back exercises, then you couldn't have used that bow properly."

Her expression changed from one of disappointment into one of annoyance, before she could come up with a retort he continued talking.

"The reason why I wanted you to try was to see if I could teach you, since you're not strong enough to use my bow that just means you'll need to make one. Until then you'll have to keep using that hand crossbow, maybe you can use it for a sneak attack in the middle of combat."

He eyes seemed to light up at the mention of constructing her own longbow, he could already hear the gears turning in her head. Falwynn was definitely the daughter of a dwarf, with that thought Brent motioned to the armor he had laid out on the bed.

"Get changed quickly, we'll start as soon as your ready. Meet me in the next room over, then we'll be heading back to Falconreach to find some small-time quests to do."

Falwynn nodded her acceptance and walked towards the bed, Brent took a moment to consider if his old armor would fit her. The thought made him pause before he could exit the room before he shrugged, if it didn't fit they would figure it out.

Another thought entered his mind as he entered his training room, he should probably try to teach Falwynn a few other tricks he knew. Especially ones that are helpful outside of combat, or to avoid combat at all. As he began to brainstorm a wicked grin spread across lips, oh yes he defiantly had a few ideas on what to teach his Apprentice.

*Meanwhile*

It took Falwynn far longer to get the armor on then she wanted it too, she'd spent almost 5 minutes alone just adjusting the leather straps and laces. Why Brent had given her a set of armor meant for a man she had no idea, but it was probably just another joke of his. She'd have to hit extra hard during training for that, or maybe she should start thinking of her own pranks.

While it might not have been made for her the armor at least seemed like it was good quality, if simple in design. She'd put her old cuirass and boots since they gave her a slightly better defense, and it was more comfortable for her to wear. Although she did put on the leather leggings rather then her old shorts, along with several knives and daggers. Two of which hung at her sides, while another two had ben placed inside her tall boots in case she was ever disarmed.

Falwynn double checked her gear one more time to make sure that nothing hampered her movement, her fight in the Card Shoppe had opened her eyes on just home much mobility mattered. Once she knew that all of her new equipment was ready she made her way to the door that led to the next room in Brent's house.

The first thing she notice about the new room was that it was completely empty, there wasn't any sign of furniture or people except for a single piece of paper. She quickly looked both way to make sure that there was nothing else in the room, when she saw that there really wasn't anything around. Just when she was about to inspect the paper, she had a sudden feeling of extreme danger.

Falwynn paused mid step, and immediately knew that she had made a mistake.

Before she could react a heavy weight slammed into her back and sent her to the floor.

She tried to roll and get back to her feet but something knocked them out from under her, once again sending her to the floor. Before she could make any other kinds of effort to fight back a sword was placed against her neck, causing her to become as still as possible.

Falwynn looked up at whoever held the sword and realized it was Brent, she would have yelled at him but the sword was pulled back and placed on his shoulder.

"lesson number 1, always look above you before going to investigate anything. No one ever looks there so a skilled assassin might set some kind of trap." Said Brent as he walked around the prone body of his Apprentice.

A huff escaped from her as she pushed herself back up to a standing position. Falwynn looked down at the sword Brent was holding, it was a simple longsword, one that could be found in any common blacksmith. It was also the one he always carried on his back, this was the first time she had seen him wielding it.

The sword was raised until it was pointed at her head, and Brent set his left foot back which Falwynn realized made him a smaller target. His other hand hung limp at his side, that would have normally made her feel a bit better. However, Falwynn had seen him summon ice from seemingly no where.

"lesson number 2…"

A rush of wind blasted her hair back and forced her to squint, a breath of air alerted her to the presence directly behind her.

"always be prepared to dodge"

Falwynn shot into a forward roll as the whoosh of a blade sliced through the air, one of her hands dropped to her belt and gripped the handle of her new sword. As her hand surrounded the hit that cool feeling spread once more into her head, with it a sense of calm that hadn't been there before. The green energy flowed out of the hilt like a wave, before its shape became the single sided sword it had been back at Lanrete forge.

The presence in her mind seemed to sooth her tense muscle, making her more relaxed then she thought was possible in a situation like this. Brent was looking at her from a few feet away, a casual expression on his face, as if he hadn't just tried to cut her in half.

Falwynn tried to think of a plan to defend herself, but before she could even think of a first move Brent disappeared again in a bust of speed. He appeared directly in front of her mid swing, a quick back step brought her out of range and the blade. Her jump threw off her balance however and she was forced to block the second swing rather then try to dodge.

She held her sword in a two-handed grip and swung towards Brent's incoming weapon, hoping that it would stop Brent's attack. That hope was shattered when his attack easily overpowered her sloppy defense. She was starting to get afraid, even with the help from the elemental spirit.

Brent continued to attack her, and Falwynn kept doing everything in her power not to get hit. The two danced around the room, the occasional sound of metal striking metal resounding through the empty room. After 10 minutes of this Falwynn was practically dripping in sweat, her chest felt heavy because of the metal cuirass and she had been getting progressively slower as the fight went on. It was obvious to her that Brent was holding back, but somehow, he always maintained the same pace. Just fast enough to keep her from catching her breath, but not fast enough that he overwhelms her.

Frustration began to build, throughout the entire spare she had been unable to land any significant strikes. Brent would either blur out of her vision, often appearing behind her, or he would parry her weapon with his own. The entire time he'd been shouting out mistakes in her form, how her footwork wasn't proper, that she should have dodged rather then blocked.

Finally the they locked blades, giving Falwynn a chance to look Brent in the eye. His yellow irises glowing in a way that regular peoples never could, it made him look slightly supernatural. She tried to glare at him, but the effort was wasted due to her labored breath.

He noticed her glare however and gave her a slight smirk, and a blue flash went off at the end of Brent's SoulClaws. In a split-second ice encased his gauntlet and shot up his blade, when it reached the tip the ice jutted out like a scythe and stopped an inch away from her eye.

Falwynn went to move back but stumbled because of her surprise, before she could even blink Brent hooked the ice scythe behind the back of her foot and tripped her. This time she wasn't able to roll away and landed flat on her back, a groan slipped past her lips. She moved to get back up but Brent's voice stopped her in her tracks.

"That's enough, we're done for now."

Was that it? The first time she falls without being able to recover and their done? The frustration from earlier can back even stronger, she hadn't even been able to land a decent blow against him! She pushed her self up and raised her sword again. A sense of determination can to her from the blade, whatever spirit was inside didn't want to give up either.

"I'm not done yet, I won't stop until I cut you at least once."

Brent looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Are you sure about that?"

She nodded her head and gripped the sword tighter, ready to dash forward and get a good swing. The ice on Brent's sword melted away, and he raised his sword towards her until it was pointed straight at her.

His gauntlet flashed yellow and crackled with a new element.

He then shot her directly in the chest with a bolt of lightning.

The lightning surged through her metal chest plate and shocked her to her core, her muscles seized up and she collapsed the floor in a heap. Falwynn's limbs twitched uncontrollably and when she looked back up at Brent he was holding a health potion out for her to see.

"Do you want to stop now?"

*Time skip*

" _I wonder how long she_ _'_ _s going to stay mad at me?_ " Brent thought as he ate his sandwich, he and Falwynn had moved back into the kitchen after their practice fight. Then entire time Falwynn had been trying to set him on fire with her eyes, " _Note to self_ _,_ _keep her away from Pyromancers_."

Speaking of his Apprentice, she was currently trying to buff out the scorch marks on her cuirass. She'd been able to get most of it off but there would always be a slight discoloration in the metal. Falwynn was currently only wearing the lower half of the ranger set, the leather vest may have prevented the lightning from conducting right through her; but she was still covered in sweat.

Her eyes looked up and connected with his, in a sharp voice she said, "This is your fault."

Brent had the decency to look apologetic, "I said I was sorry"

"You shot me with lightning!"

"And you should have dodged."

Falwynn let out a cry of frustration before storming off to one of the cabinets, there she grabbed some fruit and a small wooden bowl. Taking one of her new knives she cut up an apple and a pear into several slices, she then returned to her seat and continued glaring at him.

Once again Brent had to contain his laughter, this was the fist time he had ever seen someone angrily eat an apple. Finally, he decided to explain himself, but first he wanted to know if she learned what he was trying to teach her.

"What do you think the point of that exercise was?"

The glare his Apprentice had previous worn disappeared, only to be replaced with one of concentration. She took several moments to think on her answer, which was good since it showed that she wasn't letting her anger get in the way.

Finally Falwynn looked back at him and answered "That when faced with a superior opponent it's better to dodge rather then try to over power them?"

It was a good point, and she wasn't wrong about that being an important lesson. But that wasn't all he wanted to hear, Brent gave her a pointed look, silently asking her to continue.

"That I need to work on my stamina?" she said after hesitating for a moment.

This time he did let out a bit of a laugh, then he quickly reassured her. "Both of those are very good points, and stamina is definitely something we will need to work on. However the main thing I wanted you to learn was to trust your instincts, in a serious fight you need to be able to react faster then your opponent."

Brent then stood up and moved so that he was away from the table, he then looked back at Falwynn.

"controlling the flow of battle is the key to victory, if your enemy can only react to you then you'll learn to predict their next action. Because you know what options they have available they will never be able to surprise you."

He then pointed to the knife she had used to slice the fruit, "why didn't you use any of those during our fight? or your hand crossbow? Why did you only use your sword?"

Falwynn's eyes widened in surprise as she looked at the weapons lining her belt, the idea hadn't even crossed her mind. She had been too focussed on not getting hit that she hadn't even attempted to use her other weapons. Her eyes dropped down to the floor, maybe if she had thought to use them she could have actually hit him.

"Never forget what options you have, if you can not stop an enemy then distract them and escape. If you can't escape, then do everything in your power to keep the enemy at a distance. If you can keep yourself from being hit, then you will never lose a fight."

Brent walked over to the wet leather vest beside Falwynn and picked it up, the gem in his SoulClaw flashed a deep blue and water began slowly drain out of the garment. After a few seconds Brent had a small ball of water floating in his hand, once the last drop had been pulled from the armor he handed it back to his Apprentice.

"Put this back on, we're going to head out to Falconreach now. I need to meet up with a friend of mine while you look for a job to do, I also need to introduce you to some people while we're there."

He then grabbed his Dragon Amulet and focused on the bond he shared with Al, sending out a message to return to the house. He felt a pull on the Amulet and knew that the message went through, when he looked towards his Apprentice she was just putting on her cloak.

They waited outside for only a few minutes before Al arrived back at the house, the two climbed onto his back and took off for the city. Falwynn sat behind Brent and was silent as the Dragon ran through the surrounding forest, she was shocked by how agile it was, moving faster then they ever could have on a horse. She was also thinking about what Brent had said, she knew he was right and that if she wanted to able to fight against the kinds of monsters Brent faced everyday.

Next time she would use everything she had on hand, and maybe make some upgrades to her crossbow.

Brent on the other hand was thinking about how his Apprentice fought during their spare, although he had obviously been holding back she had done very well. Not many armature swordsmen could have kept that pace for so long, and for the most part her dodging and be almost acrobatic. If her skills could be refined she would have a solid defence, leaving more time to work on the things he could actually teach her.

Mainly how to attack and kill things.

Besides that, he was going to have to ask a few friends for some help, he wasn't exactly the best at using a bow. Brent knew a Ranger named Zack who worked with the resistance from time to time, he would have to introduce Falwynn when they stopped soon.

But before they could do that he wanted his Apprentice to pick her first job, it was time that she meet his old friends Ash and Aria.

End Notes

And that's all for now, Falwynn's doing her best to learn and its going to show in later chapters.

I've been thinking a lot about some cool upgrades she could make on either a longbow or a hand crossbow, and I hope you all are looking forward to more character interaction. If you have any questions or comments let me know in the Reviews, until next time!


	8. Chapter 8

Authors Note

All aspects belong to AE, I just made the MC

Hey everyone! Happy New Years! I've been swamped the past while and took far longer then i wanted to too finish this chapter. However, in return for taking so long I just wrote my biggest chapter yet. So i hope you all enjoy this.

Edited as of January 9th - sorry guys I just realized I left some pretty big mistakes haha, they should be gone now but I just want to apologies to anyone who read the unedited chapter. I must have looked pretty amateur to you all.

Chapter 8: Meeting old friends, and learning new secrets

The ride to Falconreach was uneventful, though they did ride past an area of smashed trees, since each of them were lost in their own thoughts both were caught off guard when the ruined gates of Falconreach appeared in front of them.

Brent had seen the town in disrepair before, from the time Xan burned it to the ground and nearly every massive invasion since then. However, nothing had compared to the damage done to the town during the Black Winter war. Not even Sepulcher had as much damage, both physically and mentally. Both had left scars on the people of this city, some more obvious then others and others that only affected certain individuals.

The faces of Gram, Serenity, and many Guardians passed through Brent's mind. How many friends had he been forced to bury because of a few powerful individuals thought they deserved more in life.

"Hail, Master SoulWeaver!" yelled out a familiar woman wearing the grey and gold armour of the Guardian Order, a two handed greatsword was planted in the ground in front of her. Brent waved from on top of Al, the Guardians had been his allies for a long time, this one in particular.

"Hey Jenni, how's guard duty today? Any trouble going on in town that I should know about?" as he closed the distance between him and the Guardian, Brent couldn't help but let his mind wonder back to his first time coming to Falconreach.

He'd been soaking wet from his fight with the Hydra and been in a bad mood, when he had arrived at the town it was already being attacked by undead skeletons. All he really wanted to do was get dry and eat a decent meal, but since those skeletons had been in his way they had to go. After 10 minutes of fighting a lucky axe swing had landed on his dominant sword arm, leaving him mostly defenceless. Before he could even begin to worry the skeleton had been cut down by a tall woman in a set of impressive armour, she had been wielding a sword covered in hooked edges and spikes with ease.

For the rest of the battle that Guardian had stuck by his side, protecting his weakened side while he tried to fight while wielding his sword in his right hand. It wasn't until the field had been cleared that he'd even been able to ask her name, he wasn't ashamed to say that Jenni had been his first crush after that point.

That crush didn't last long however, mostly because he found out she was closer to his mothers age then his.

Jenni shook her head to let him know that nothing had happened that needed his attention, with that Brent went to continue on his way into the town only to be stopped when Jenni gave him a hard look.

"I heard you got an Apprentice from some of the gossip mongers in town, is this young woman the one they've been talking about?"

Feeling a bit sheepish about forgetting to introduce Falwynn to one of his old friends he scratched the back of his head and let out a weak chuckle. Brent then looked back to his Apprentice to she that she was slightly nervous at the attention she was now getting from the experienced Guardian.

Deciding to help her out a bit Brent put on a large smile and said with pride, "That's right this is Falwynn, she's Doug's daughter, and my new Apprentice. I'm surprised that news has already spread, we only passed through Falconreach for a little while on our way to Ravenloss."

Jenni just shrugged her shoulders, but a smile was visible through the slights in her helmet. "News travels fast when it concerns you, especially when that news concerns you and a young lady." Her smile formed more into a smirk as she spoke.

The Guardians words managed to bring a slight blush to both of the adventurer's cheeks, before either of them could deny those claims the Guardian motioned them forward with a laugh.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do kids, and if either of you ever need help you know the Guardians will have your back."

Brent decided he didn't want to hear anymore of his old teachers teasing, and kicked Al back into motion. As they moved through the ruined gates Brent could hear the Guardians behind them whispering and laughing quietly to themselves. Shaking his head in exasperation Brent pointed out the red and blue tents that were currently serving as the alchemy shops in the city.

"Those are run Alina and Reens, their both extremely smart and make most of the potions that you'll find around town. If you ever need some kind of remedy or healing come here for some help, they'll even teach you how to brew some of your own in exchange for supplies."

"Did they make those really strong health potions I took after our spare?"

Brent shook his head no, "I made those, but Reens is the one who taught me how to make them. I must have worked for her on and off for a year."

Falwynn raised an eyebrow even though she knew that Brent couldn't see it, "Why were you working for her? Don't most adventurers make enough money from fighting monsters to at least sleep in a tavern every night?"

He didn't answer her right away, instead he waved to a young man standing in front of Inn who Falwynn hadn't seen before. Workers were busy repairing the east side of the building, when they saw the large black drake moving past their scaffolding they each grabbed onto the support post with a death grip. They didn't look exactly scared, but they did seem to expect the scaffolding to collapse at anytime.

It was then that Falwynn heard him mumbling "please don't hit it" over and over again.

When they moved to the middle of the street without issue Brent finally let out a sigh of relief he'd been holding in. Falwynn looked back at workers now behind her, they'd gone back to work without delay, and some of them even had smiles on their faces. Al moved around a large crater in the ground and stopped in front of a wooden stable beside a tree stump, on that stump sat a red Moglin with a stick.

Brent and Falwynn dismounted, allowing Al to crawl into the stable and lay down in the shade it provided. It was only then that he gave his response, "She saved my life after my first fight against Xan, I was covered in burns nearly from head to toe. It was the least I could do to repay her for all the health potions she had to use on me, on the side she taught me how to brew my own potions in case I wasn't in town for her to heal me."

When he saw his Apprentice's horrified expression he quickly reassured her, "that's one of the worst injuries I've ever had, and I overestimated my abilities at the time. It was a life lesson that I needed to learn, it's also the reason why I started learning everything I could from that point on. I'll introduce you to Reens at some point, we can both teach you a thing or two about Alchemy." Said Brent with a smile.

"Besides, you must have heard that story from your dad? There's no way he wouldn't have told you about the first time Falconreach was destroyed."

Falwynn still looked a bit disturbed at the mental image of Brent covered from head to toe in burns, replied with a dejected tone in her voice. "I know that you lost, but he never told me how badly you were hurt. He just said that you'd been unconscious for a few days before you started going out again."

Brent looked at her with slightly widened eyes, realizing that she would have been a lot younger and Doug had probably wanted to keep her from being scared. Still, it was time she knew the truth. Being a Hero is dangerous, and if that battle had taken place away from Falconreach he would have died.

They stopped in the middle of the street and Brent stood in front of his Apprentice, "Remember the Bassualt from the Card Shoppe, I had just defeated that thing when Xan showed up. I was tired but still full of adrenaline form actually defeating that monster, I thought there was no way Xan could stop me. Because of arrogance he nearly cooked me inside my armour, I wasn't fast enough at the time to dodge his attacks."

The two stood in silence for a moment, Falwynn thinking about what she had just heard and Brent waiting to see if she understood. He felt that Falwynn was too inexperienced to fall to hubris, but if he could keep her from making that mistake in the first place he would.

Finally Falwynn looked into Brent's eyes and nodded her head, and while Brent would have preferred a verbal answer, there were several people he wanted to introduce his Apprentice too.

*Meanwhile*

Even though Falwynn had nodded in understanding she still couldn't get the mental image out of her head, all the stories she had heard about Brent said that he was practically invincible. She knew that he wasn't always like that, but the idea of Brent being beaten by his own arrogance? She tried to imagine him younger then her and already defeating something as monstrous as the Bassualt.

Maybe that just proved how much stronger she needed to be, so far he had emphasised the importance of learning everything she could know. Once she finished her first quest she would ask him about all of his teachers, maybe she could learn from them too.

She followed the Hero to the front of the inn, finally looking at the young man by the door. The first two things that caught her attention was the glowing sword and the X shaped scar on his cheek. The sword had an interesting hilt, with what appeared to be a large golden crystal fixed in the middle. From that crystal a golden feather wrapped around the blade, at least she thought it was a feather. His armor was a shinning silver and gold, the metal boots went up to his knees and his arms were covered from finger tips up to the base of his neck. His chest was partially covered by a metal cuirass, one that showed his mustard yellow shirt. Finally, the man was wearing a tattered brown cloak with a gold line near the bottom.

She was broken out of her observation when a large smile broke across the mans face and he raised an armoured fist in a wave. His hand came out from under his cloak, she could see a large red stone was imbedded over metal plate surrounding his fist.

"It's about time you made it over here, I was beginning to wonder how long you planned to talk before making it to the other side of the street." The man said with a laugh.

Brent laughed along with him before the two men shook hands and gave each other a one-armed hug. He then grabbed the other man by his metal pauldron and turned him so that they were both facing Falwynn.

"Falwynn, this is Ash. He's one of my oldest friends and one of the most dedicated heroes I've ever known. He stepped up in my absence and has protected Falconreach for the past 7 years, there are very few people who I would ask to have watch my back. As I'm sure you already know Ash, this is Falwynn my new Apprentice."

Ash held one of his hands for her to shake which she took; his grip was firm but not to strong. He then gave her a warm smile that caused his scar to scrunch up, it honestly made him seem like one of those old war heroes she used to hear about as a child.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Falwynn, ever since I heard from the rumors about Brent having an Apprentice I've been waiting to meet you. It wasn't to long ago that I was learning from him myself, you'll go far with him teaching you the ropes."

She replied with a "thank you" as they dropped their hands back to their sides, Brent then coughed into his hand so that Ash would focus on him again.

"Falwynn's going to be doing her first quest today, I was hoping that you would have something for her to do? Nothing to big but a horde of crazy elementals, but still something that will give her a challenge."

Falwynn was glad that he didn't want to throw her into the thick of trouble again, she wasn't sure what she would do if she went against more than a few enemies at a time. While she was confident that she could pick them off at a distance with her crossbow, she wasn't as confident in melee. In fact, Brent had yet to really train her on how to use her new sword. That was something she would need to talk to him about.

Ash's face turned grim and both Falwynn and Brent could see a bit of resentment in his eyes. "The Rose has been cleaning out the Caves and Marshes lately, and the elementals that aren't in hiding are being held by the Rose. I'm supposed to meet with an informant later tonight, but I don't think that Falwynn's ready for this kind of job yet."

Falwynn opened her mouth to protest but Brent beat her too it, "She's my Apprentice Ash, that alone makes her involved in this. Where are you meeting this informant? I can be there after I meet with Mritha."

Ash's eyes moved back and forth between Master and Apprentice before letting out a sigh before looking at Falwynn with a little smile.

"Fair enough Brent, I'm supposed to meet with them near Surewould Forest in a few hours after sunset. I'll meet you there when your done with your own meeting, you should go see Aria while you're in town. I heard that Yulgaris coming to town soon, you'll have to introduce them to Falwynn."

"I was already planning on introducing her to Aria, but it's good to hear that Yulgar will be there too. We'll see you later Ash, and keep me updated on the Rose's activity around Falconreach, we need to know if their planning on building another Keep nearby."

While the two older heroes were talking neither had noticed the hard look Falwynn had leveled at the back of Brent's head. She had noticed that he knew a lot of women in this town: Jenni, Reens, this Aria girl and now another one named Mritha? Falwynn couldn't help but wonder about what kinds of relationships he had with them all. There were probably even more that she didn't know about, even his greatest enemy right now was a woman, Jaania the Ice Queen of the Rose.

She couldn't help herself, Jenni seemed like an old friend, but had they been "just friends"? She knew that Reens was a renowned Alchemist in her 40s by now, so there was probably nothing there. But what about this Aria and Mritha? Who were they and how did they know Brent? She had thought that she knew about most of his friends from the tales her father had told her. Where was Artix and Warlic? Galanoth, Robina and Zoom? She had never even heard of Yashta and Aegis until she meet them in Ravenloss.

One thing was for sure, Brent either had a lot of secrets, or her father had kept a lot of information from her in his letters. She was going to have to get some answers out of Brent soon, she was willing to wait for somethings, like whatever had been in that warded cabinet. But even Brent himself had said that she deserved to be included, if there were things she needed to know then she would have to find out, one way or another.

*Meanwhile*

Brent was glad that his Apprentice was starting to get involved with his friends, Ash seemed to like Falwynn and hopefully so would Aria. He still remembered when she was just a bratty kid that he had "rescued" from a giant spider, she had been a bit of a pain after that. It wasn't until after the fire war that and the death of Grams that Brent and Aria had reconciled their differences.

Of course, that was only after she had screamed at him for 10 minutes about how it was his fault she was gone. She had hit every weak spot and doubt he'd been feeling for the past few months, things that had been gnawing way at him ever since the race against Sepulchre became desperate. That was honestly one of his lowest points, low enough that he broke down in front of a little girl who had just lost the woman that raised her.

Kids say the craziest things sometimes right, he didn't even remember half of what he said that night. But what he does remember was when Aria finally hugged him, she apologized for everything she said and that she was wrong to blame him. The only thing he didn't like was the fact that he can't recall what he said to her, it was like the memory had been plucked from his mind, and he never felt comfortable asking Aria what he had said.

Regardless he shouldn't be thinking about that right now, he didn't want Falwynn to think anything was up with him. And he had other things to worry about, like his meeting with Mritha and Kara. They're supposed to update me on the search for The Face Nommer, and they only had a little less then 2 months before Edd was needed back in Espina Rosa.

Brent wanted to spend as much time as he could be teaching Falwynn, but he didn't know when he would be back from the Rose prison. She needed to know who she could go to when he was gone, and he didn't want her to spend all of it in Ravenloss. He'd made a promise to Doug that Falwynn would see the world and not spend all of her time in cave.

Anyways, they had just passed Cysero's magic shop and now the Pet shop, or rather the tent, was in sight. Just off to the side stood Caran and Diawe, the Deathknight sisters that he'd met back when he was searching for the water orb.

Neither of the women looked at them as the pushed through the tent flaps, inside they saw dozens of animals. Magical and none magical alike, though Aria was no where in sight, she must have been in the back area looking after more of her pets. Brent called out her name, instead of hearing a reply from her he was meet by a set of growls from a trio of Pridemasters the stalked their way into the store.

Each of these beasts was around waist height and maybe 4ft long, their manes looked like fire waving back and forth as they slowly moved forward. Brent remembered when Aria found these in the wilds, she'd raised them with the help of Gram before she passed, and since then they had grown very strong. Each one by themselves could probably maul a full-grown man, together they could take down a Gorillaphant.

"Brutus, Angelica, Judas sit."

Immediately the three Pridemasters sat at attention with their chests puffed out and heads held tall. The child that had once been Aria had grown into a fine young woman, compared to Falwynn she was rather thin but still had what Brent called an Aura. Aria had spent her life around and training animals, this along with her old bratty attitude had built a very strong willpower, one that he still clashed with on occasion.

Her most vibrant feature was of course her red hair, it was the same color as the corset she wore around her waist. Underneath her corset she wore a white blouse and a dirty brown apron, lastly, she had a pair of green trousers as well as black leather boots and black boots that ended a just after her elbows.

Around her waist was a belt with several pouches built into the length on one side, and a leather whip attached to the other. A slight smirk made its way onto Brent's face, between him, Yulgar and Aria herself he pitied the boy who fell in love with her.

"Aria! Good to see you again! How's the latest batch of pets doing? Are those Battle Pigs still giving you any trouble?" Brent said with his arms out, he'd felt a slight beat of nervousness when she had spoken earlier. She only acted like that when she was in one of her moods, and when she was she had a tendency to be a real bitch…

"Maul."

And there it was, the Pridemasters struck fast but luckily for him he was faster. As they dove towards him with claws out and teeth bared he blurred out of existence, only to appear back near the entrance.

Now Falwynn was between him the Pridemasters, but he wasn't worried. He knew that Aria's order had been aimed at him, and unsurprisingly, so did her loyal beasts. When they landed on the floor without him they didn't hesitate to charge towards the door, they must have been smart enough to know where he would have Flashed too. Honestly, he shouldn't be surprised by this, they were trained by newest in a long line of Beast masters.

They split off and attacked him, each from a different angle cutting off a path of retreat. While he was busy dodging around he heard Aria talking to Falwynn in a voice as sweet as a tooth ache during Frostval, "Come on out back, I'm sure you have a few question's, I have some as well. But for now let me introduce myself, I'm Aria, and welcome to my shop. Feel free to look around and pick out a pet if you want, we can talk prices later.

"Oh and Brent…"

At the mention of his name Brent almost didn't react fast enough to dodge the one of the Pridemasters, one that had managed to sneak around him. While none of these animals could actually kill him, they could still hurt him badly, "Yes?"

"If you hurt even one of my babies, I'll feed you to Thomas."

Maybe it would be best if he just left the two of them alone, he could go meet Mritha by himself and leave the girls alone. After all, how bad could it be if the two of them got along, that's what he'd come to do anyways right?

*Meanwhile*

As the sound of growls and yelps faded with the closing of the tent flaps Falwynn couldn't help but stare at red head as she hummed a tune to herself. Weren't they supposed to be friends? At least this kind of behaviour proved one thing, these two definitely weren't dating.

"So let me just get this straight, see how many of the rumors are true so, stop when I say something wrong, fair enough?"

Falwynn nodded her head with slightly widened eyes, her ton right now was a lot different from when it was back in the store.

When she gave the younger girl a nod the red head smiled back at her with her eyes closed.

"Good, now first off, your Doug's daughter correct? From Lymcrest?"

Another nod.

"Ok, and is it true that you meet in Swordhaven? At the Tournament of Champions no less, from which I also heard he saved your life?"

How did she know all of that? Was this really general knowledge to people in Falconreach? Just how powerful was this rumor mill she kept hearing about?

When she didn't node right away Aria crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, "Well?"

Falwynn raised her hands as if to surrender, "Yes that was the first time I met him, and yes he did save me."

Aria then looked her dead in the eye, "Last question, what's your favorite animal?"

For a split seconds Falwynn hesitated, but then she said "I like squirrels" without really thinking. A blush then soon spread across face as she realized what she had said, before she could say anything else Aria burst out laughing.

"You kind of remind me of a squirrel now that I think about it, might be the hair, I get the feeling we'll get along fine." The red head said while still laughing.

"However, I want you to spill all of Brent's dirty little secrets for me. I need as much blackmail material as I can get, and you are in a prime spot to get some."

At first that sounded like a terrible idea, how could she possible let someone try to blackmail Brent. However, Falwynn wanted to learn more about Brent, maybe she could exchange information "How long have you known Brent?"

Aria just blinked for a few seconds before a Cheshire smile spread across her lips, "Since I was a little kid, I'll been on all kinds of adventures. Tell you what, if you bring me any dirt on him that's recent, I'll tell you everything I know about him."

Her smile then softened, "My dads should be here any minute, do you want to relax while we wait? I'm sure he would love to meet you, and if you have any more questions about Brent you should ask him. My dad taught him how to forge weapons and armor, so I'm sure he'll have a few good stories to tell."

A soft growl brought both girls attentions to back to the door, it was then that the three Pridemasters came back in one at a time, each one had two distinct features. The largest of the three had black rings around his eyes and a red stone in his forehead, another had black fur on his chest and a green stone, and the last one had white paws and a blue stone.

They each seemed a bit to smug to Falwynn, and when Brent didn't enter in after she realized why, they must have somehow managed to chase Brent off! It seemed she wasn't the only one to figure this out because Aria called her pets over, kneeled down and began praising them with ear scratches and treats.

She couldn't understand why the other woman seemed to like harassing the Hero so much, especially when he had made it seem like she meant something to him. How could he be friends with a girl who ordered her pets to attack him?

"So, what's your relationship with Brent? You don't seem to like him very much." Falwynn asked after a moment of thought.

"Well when I was just a kid he killed my favorite pet Thomas, he's lucky I found another one just like him a few weeks later. Still, I don't hate him if that's what your thinking, I just like to keep him on his toes. If these three can bring him down then he's gotten lazy, plus I'm sure he was smart enough to hold back. He knows that if he ever hurt one of my babies that I'd have Thomas lay eggs all over his house when he's not around."

"So you don't hate him? You're just trying to keep him from getting rusty? That seems a bit excessive to me."

Falwynn expected some kind of reaction from Aria, either anger or a sarcastic remark. What she did not expect was the dead silence that followed. She looked at the other woman as she continued to pet her three Pridemasters, the look of happiness was gone and instead Falwynn could only see the thin line of Aria's mouth.

Suddenly the red head stood up and looked a little less sure of herself, her eyes moved left and right as if she was trying to spot a hidden listener. Aria then took Falwynn's hand and brought her back inside the tent, the three Pridemasters following closely behind until they too were inside the tent.

The store was in complete disarray, with boxes knocked over and scattered around the ground. On the large counter off to the side were several bowls filled with water that had miraculously not been knocked over. Aria started to clean up the mess and restack the boxes, while she did this she spoke one sentence that froze Falwynn where she stood.

"how much danger do you think you and Brent are in right now."

Slightly nervous at the turn this conversation had taken, Falwynn gave an honest answer without too much thought.

"I know that we have enemies, primarily the Rose. And I'm sure Brent has some other enemies that would love to use me as bait, but we are in Falconreach, no one here would try to harm either of us. Even if there was someone, Brent's to strong now to lose to even a handful of skilled opponents."

Before she had even finished her explanation, Aria had already started shaking her head, "You may not see them very often, but the Rose does have a few agents in the city. These people would see you as an easy target, and just like right now Brent isn't here to save you. Never forget that there is always danger around you, even here in the heart of Falconreach we have had traitors rise from time to time."

A look of sorrow passed over Aria's face, there was clearly history that she wasn't willing to share right now that had built this opinion.

After a few moments of silence Aria seemed to calm herself, she moved over and sat on one of the boxes and continued with what she had to say.

"Brent is the strongest man I've ever known, but even he will eventually die. I don't know if it will be 60 years from now or if it could be tomorrow, and if keeping him on his toes helps him be more aware, or even if it just keeps him from getting lazy? I'll do it. It might not make sense to a stranger like you, but I've seen to many people I care about die and I don't want to lose another just because they weren't prepared."

*Meanwhile*

Brent whistled a short tune that he remembered his mother once humming to him as a child, just a small comfort he had to remind him of his old home. He would have to visit her at least once before he leaves for his mission, he'd honestly been avoiding her ever since he was unfrozen. Not because he didn't want to see her, but because since the rise of the Rose and his return to active duty made her an obvious target. Maybe if he distanced himself from her and his old home the Rose will leave her in peace.

These were the thoughts that passed through Brent's mind as he walked through the mash lands of Sulen'Eska. The heavy winds blew through the trees and created a low howl that echoed all around him, to anyone else this might seem scary, but Brent knew that it was just the wind elves and their unique magic.

When he saw a familiar brown cloak and the gray skin of a wind elf he called out, his voice carried with the wind so that the look out would know he was coming. When they were finally in front of each other Halda Sulji removed her hood and smiled at the Hero, "It's good that your back, Mritha is waiting for you at her usual post. Might want to hurry though, I hear that she's found some pretty important information that you'll need to see right away."

Nodding at the new information Brent followed his fellow freedom fighter, as they made their way to the main camp of the resistance Brent wondered how things were going between Aria and Falwynn. Hopefully they were getting along fine, he'd hate to find out that Aria had sent her pets after his Apprentice. Once things were done with Mritha he would need to get back to Falconreach fast, something was causing a tightness in his gut, making him extra cautious about his surrounding. Hopefully, things would go well for once, and nothing unexpected would happen.

End Notes

And that's all for now folks! I hope you all liked the latest chapter, if you have any constructive criticism or even just regular advice please leave a review.

Right now though I want to just make something clear, Brent has a lot of secrets. Things he doesn't tell just anyone, but dont worry because eventually all will be made clear.

With that said I will be working on the next chapter immediately, hopefully it wont take me so long as it did to write this one.


	9. Chapter 9

Authors Notes 

All aspects belong to AE, I just made the MC

First off I want to apologize for the late update, recently my grandfather passed away from cancer and I've been busy getting ready for the funeral in Nova Scotia. because of this I haven't had a lot of time to work on my fanfiction, luckily I managed to finish this latest chapter before heading down. I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as I did writing it, I'll be asking people's opinions in the End Notes so please read that at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 9:Plans for the Future

Brent felt the wind rush through his hair as Wiatr carried him up to the top of the tree fort, the Wind elf was surprisingly strong and was able to carry him easily. When his boots finally touched down on the wooden platform he immediately started walking, he turned and gave a quick wave and a cry of thanks as he made his way towards the stairs.

Before he could even get to them he saw the familiar and uniquely colored armor of Mritha, her purple Dragonlord armor had recently been cleaned as was evident by the shine coming off of her breastplate.

Her dark eyes stood out like black pits against her pale complexation and the purple streaks in her hair. The slight smile on her face gave her an attractive appearance, not to say she wasn't attractive without one, just that she looked bit to serious.

"Good to see you Brent, I was wondering when you would arrive. Kara's waiting for you upstairs but first I need to talk to you." She then motioned for him to follow behind her, they moved away from the stairs and instead stopped by the edge of the wooden platform. From up here they could see most of the surrounding marshland, as well as the majority of the Resistance base.

Brent could see "soldiers" moving back and forth, some carrying supplies while others trained with weapons, mostly with their natural weapons, though some were using spears and swords. The "soldiers" were mostly Clawkin's that had been forced to flee their homes due to the Rose, though he could see a few sets of green scaly wings that proved some Dravir were still around. Seeing the regulars of the Resistance always filled Brent with mixed feelings, he remembered back before he was frozen, back when he saw the Clawkin almost as animals.

He'd had no idea that they had their own society, no idea that whenever his sword struck down one of them he was killing a father, or a mother, a child to someone else.

It was an eye-opening experience when he first met their leader and learned of their society, it was also one of the reasons why he was willing to fight for the Resistance. He'd spent so long trying to keep humanity safe that he never fully considered the plight that other races faced, this was his chance to make up for that, to protect all magical beings who deserved their freedom.

"They aren't ready for what's to come."

The words broke the silence that had settled over the two of them and Brent had to keep from flinching, instead he turned to see the grim look that now dominated Mritha's face. he wondered what had gone through her head as she looked over the encampment, Mritha was here almost constantly and took a more active role in training the troops then he did. She knew what they were capable of much better then Brent did, and if she said they weren't ready that spoke volumes about how any future battles against the Rose might go.

He may not have been around during the formation of the Resistance, but he knew that the kinds of troops they had weren't professional soldiers. From what he had been able to learn a majority of the great fighters and leaders were either dead or imprisoned at this point in time.

Now they had nothing except civilian volunteers and angry freedom fighters who have grown bitter after years of failure. Both were not the kinds of people Brent wanted to put against a trained army, especially one with lead by Jaania and Akanthus, who had proven over the years to that they could and would win this war.

Unless enough people stood up and fought for what they believed in, and there in lay the problem.

"If things work out then they won't need to be ready, I've successfully attacked more Rose bases in the last month then they have in years. If I can keep this pace up, then maybe the Rose won't be able to mount a significant counter attack."

As he said this he looked at Mritha with the best smile he could, he squared his shoulder and tried to stand as tall as he could. When he looked into his fellow DragonLords eyes he tried to convey as much confidence as possible. This was a skilled he learned a long time ago, it didn't matter so much if you believed you own words, but if your audience did.

From the slight smile she gave back to him it seemed to have worked.

"You can't fight the Rose all on your own Brent, even you need back up."

…or maybe it didn't.

Mritha then pulled some parchment from somewhere on her armor, which she then held out for Brent to take. "Especially for these kinds of jobs, if you go in there without Aegis and Yashta you wont need the Face Nommer to get into Espina Rosa."

Immediately curious about what jobs she was talking about, the Hero accepted the parchment and scanned it with his eyes. He quickly realized that it was a map of Greenguard, one that had 3 symbols drawn on it to look like a rose. The 3 roses created a triangular perimeter around Falconreach, Brent also noticed that one of the roses was directly where Oaklore keep was located.

He couldn't help but give Mritha a raised eyebrow at that, after all Oaklore wasn't just a Rose fortress now, it was still officially under the control of the King of Swordhaven. "You know that if we attack there that many would consider it an act of open war? We might lose some of our supporters because they don't want to become enemies of Alteon."

"Which is why I want you to attack it last, and only after we see how the Rose reacts. If they fall back we'll have more time to prepare less risky operations, as it is we're being surrounded on all sides and can't afford not to retaliate. If we don't take these bases then Sulen'Eska could easily be found and destroyed, which is why we'll need Oaklore in case the Rose tries to escalate after taking the other two bases."

Brent's face contorted into a look of confusion, "You really think that things could get worse then they already are? I mean the Rose already has the support of the King, and they aren't exactly subtle when they attack and enslave magical creatures and mages."

Instead of answering him immediately, Mritha turned and headed back towards the stairs. Brent followed a step or two behind her, "I mean, even if we take Oaklore what does that really accomplish. It seems like to big a risk right now, do we even have the man power to hold it?"

When she still didn't answer him the Hero started to feel annoyed, he kept his tone even however so that Mritha wouldn't notice.

"Does Kara know about these plans?"

The purple clad Dragonlord stopped at that and Brent's suspicions immediately rose, he didn't want to think that Mritha was going behind Kara's back to authorize missions as risky as these would be. His muscles subconsciously tensed like a spring waiting to explode, but loosened slightly as a disarming smile appeared on Mritha's face as she looked over her shoulder at Brent.

"Kara's actually the one who came up with this plan of action, but don't take my word for it, I'll let her explain everything in a moment."

The Hero was surprised by Mritha's words, something that must have been obvious by the amused laughter that came from his fellow Dragonlord. Well, at the very least he was curious to see why Kara would want to go this far. Since he had meet the wind elf he always assumed she was more reserved and cautious, the most excessive thing she had ever suggested was breaking into Espina Rosa.

As Mirtha continued on her way up the steps Brent channeled a bit of magic into his finger tip before tapping a small glass ball that dangled from his belt. A familiar sensation began to spread throughout Brent's head, "Aegis, I'm in Sulen'Eska. I left Falwynn with Aria, can you check on her?"

The Sensation cooled sharply before dissipating, " _I'm glad Aegis showed me that little trick, this is so much more efficient then going back to Ravenloss every time I need his help._ " Thought the Hero as a smile spread across his face, he stuffed his armored hands into the deep pockets of his coat and followed Mritha.

*Meanwhile*

Deep underground in the city of Ravenloss the Spirit of Valor was humming to himself as he cleaned the house, a job that was fairly simple since it was made mostly out of ice. Aegis paused in his cleaning as the clear glass ball hanging from his wrist glowed a light blue, as he hears a whisper enter his mind his pacing slowed until he stopped completely. Once he had heard the whole message Aegis gave a slight nod of his head, even though no one was there to see it. Aegis then gripped the ball in the opposite hand and focused his power through the connection he shared with Brent. Once he knew Brent had received his response Aegis began to channel his magic into the ice around him.

Slowly the ice from the ground spiked up, forming a crude archway that while at first was empty, quickly filled in with a thin layer of ice. Aegis waited another few seconds for the ice to solidify before he placed his hand on the smooth surface, his eyes then closed as the spirit envisioned the town of Falconreach.

With two quick steps forward and the sounds of shattering glass, Aegis opened his eyes to see the familiar doorway into Cysero's workshop. While the streets may have stayed the same many of the buildings were replaced with tents or were in states of half repair. The spirits eyes scanned the ground for a crater that he had helped create, he knew that it had been made somewhere in the middle of town just in front of Lim's tent. When he finally saw it Aegis paused and remembered, some townsfolk walking by stopped to look at the Spirit but if their attention bothered Aegis he never let it show.

Instead he was to focused on memories that flashed through his mind.

A large chunk of ice slamming into the decaying and dead soil.

A terrified pair of eyes shifting back and forth between gold and an icy blue.

He'd only been trying to save Brent, Aegis had never expected that he'd have a panic attack afterwards. The only way the aftermath could have been any worse would have been if Brent had blacked out and started attacking everything he'd seen as a threat.

Instead Brent made himself out to be the Rose's number one enemy and negated any chance of peace that Falconreach may have had with Jaania and her forces. A pang of regret traveled through Aegis's core, Brent had only been able to do that because he'd transferred all of his remaining mana to his Soul Ally. After seeing Brent's reaction to being frozen Aegis had been quick to anything in his power to ease his friends pain, if only he'd taken the time to think before he'd acted.

Finally, Aegis tore his eyes away from the crater and began walking to where Aria's pet shop should have been. When he finally entered the tent he was surprised to find it empty aside from a few random animals roaming around the shop. Expecting to find the two girls in the back area behind the tent, Aegis was once more surprised when instead he saw the old blacksmith Yulgar.

"If your looking for Aria and her new friend they left a few hours ago, I was telling them about a harp I made for Aria's mother and how I lost it near Oaklore." The blacksmith said with a thick and heavy voice.

The Spirit made his way over until he stood beside the middle-aged man in front of the large basin of water, noting the grey hair that had spread from his temples and was making its way down into his full beard. "I take it they went looking for this harp?"

Yulgar let out a gruff laugh before turning to Aegis, "Yes yes, those fool girls got it in their heads that they'll succeed where I failed years ago. The green one said something about needing to finish her first quest, and once her goal was set Aria wouldn't let her go alone."

The two men seemed to share a quiet laugh at Falwynn's expense before composing themselves. Aegis turned to leave but was stopped by Yulgar's hand that clamped down around his forearm, when he looked into the smith's eyes they were as hard as the steel he had spent his life shaping.

"I've been hearing some concerning things out in Battleon, things that concern this town and my daughter. You'd do best to eliminate those fears, unless you'd like me to visit Brent with my hammer."

Aegis considered just how funny it was that this man felt he could threaten the Spirit of Valor itself. Normally he would have frozen the mans arm before leaving but considering that Yulgar would just build a new arm, then use it to break his or Brent's legs reminded him of just who he was talking too.

After all, nothing was more serious then a father's love for his daughter.

"what exactly have you heard? I can promise that if it concerns Brent or his new Apprentice then you have nothing to worry about."

Yulgar released Aegis's arm and raised an eyebrow before crossing his massive arms over his chest, "Is that true? Then that messenger must have been confused when he told me that Brent challenged an army of Rose soldiers to a death match in the middle of town? An army that was personally lead by Jaania? One that outnumbered the Heroes of Falconreach 3 to 1?"

Each question came out just a bit louder then the last, until Yulgar was practically yelling. If Aegis had been human he probably would have flinch, luckily for him he had earned his aspect. That didn't stop him from struggling to come up with a way to defend Brent's actions, because to be honest the situation had been as bad as Yulgar described.

*Flashback*

After defeating Al's corrupted body Brent and his allies had fallen from the sky, Aegis had tried to save his partner by encasing him in ice so that it would keep his fall from being fatal. Once it had struck the ground it exploded in a shower of light throwing huge ice shards in every direction, at the center stood Brent clad in his Paladin armor wielding Radiant Providence. He'd been panting from exertion with wide eyes shifting between two colors, gold and icy blue, the bottom blade of his weapon was embedded in the dead earth at his feet as he dropped to one knee.

By the time Aegis reached his side Brent had started mumbling to himself, what little Aegis had been able to recognize was "No ice…not frozen… still here…not again." They're attention had quickly been drawn towards Al as the Doom essence refused to give up his body. Brent had screamed for someone to heal his dragon, to do something that could help him, Aegis had never felt so useless in either of his lives as he listened to Brent's agonized voice.

They'd all gathered around to try and heal Al when Caitiff appeared, still buried in the desecrated corpse of Serenity, it had claimed its victory and the victory of the Darkness. What followed could hardly be called a battle, Brent and his allies fell on Caitiff like rain from a storm. We threw everything we had at it until we'd all fallen from exhaustion rather than injury, Caitiff would have killed us all if it hadn't been for Dove's multicolored shield that he summoned at the last moment. Even then that monster merely threw us all away like trash so that it could fight Brent by itself.

When the darkness finally cleared they all saw a huge pillar of light shooting into the sky, everyone else disappeared as we took off to where that light had come from, as far as Aegis was concerned only Brent could have made something as wonderous as that.

If he had known what would later happen then maybe he wouldn't have been so excited to see Brent again.

When we all made it to the clearing Brent stood tall in his dented and batted armour, Al lay at his feet cured of the Doom essence that had previously twisted his appearance. The first sign of trouble came when instead of cheering Brent said, "What are YOU doing here…?"

Everyone's eyes were suddenly on the literal army that stood behind Jaania as she and Brent stared each other down. Finally, Jaania responded to Brent's question "Such a cold reception… I'm here to help."

From there everything went wrong, so wrong that not even Cysero could have made things worse if he appeared with an entire crate of explosions and proceeded to kill everyone.

Ok maybe things hadn't gotten that bad, but they were close.

Brent had started looking around at his allies, probably trying to see if any of us were still in fighting shape. To say that we were all dead on our feet was an understatement, most of the humans were still suffering from the dread effects of Caitiff aura, those who weren't were still in bad shape after several days of fighting none stop.

Even he, the Spirit of Valor, wouldn't amount to much against the army at Jaania's back. Brent must have realized this because his face twisted into a look of contempt and bitterness that he directed towards the Cryomancer.

"Oh, I'm sure you came to help, those weapons your men are carrying look perfect for building walls, and I'm sure your timing was totally coincidental. After all, it's not like we could have used your help 10 minutes ago when the war was still going on."

The sarcasm dripped from his words like blood off a sword. Which clearly didn't impress the leader of the Rose considering her own gaze could have frozen the ocean.

While the two leaders were glaring at each other the citizen of Falconreach had begun to come out of hiding, they quickly moved towards the heroes and soldiers. While several began tending to the more wounded soldiers Brent began to speak again, "We don't need your help Jaania, we the people of Falconreach have stood through worse tragedies than this, and we will continue to survive."

After a moment of silence, a cry of relief finally rang out through the destroyed town, the civilians and some of the Guardians all yelling out in triumph. The call had finally been made, the war was over and the town had once again survived.

It wasn't long however before those cries of triumph became mutters of confusion, we all could hear the townsfolk speaking amongst themselves until finally someone yelled out, "Why didn't she arrive sooner'?! look at all this destruction!"

As more questions were shouted out the Guardians began to look around with worry, probably fearing that a riot would start if no one did anything soon to stop it.

Jaania tried to speak up over the choir of voices but her words were drowned out. More accusations were thrown at the Rose, Brent and Aegis locked eyes and the Spirit moved to stand beside his partner.

"How much mana do you have left?" Said Brent, his voice sounded like a whisper compared to everyone around him.

Aegis could only shrug in response "Maybe half, though I'm afraid I won't be able to do much against this many members of the Rose."

Brent's eyes hardened as he looked at the sea of peasants around him, his eyes then shifting to the Rose soldiers and Jaania specifically.

"Give me what you can, if we can't drive them away with force then maybe I can scare them."

The Spirit gave Brent a nod before transferring what was left of his mana pool towards his partner, he had no idea what Brent could do to scare away an army, but he hoped it would be enough. Immediately Brent seemed to stand up straighter, he then used a simple healing spell to fix some of the wounds he'd earned during his final battle against Caitiff.

When they both finally returned their attention to Jaania she seemed to be floundering against the accusations and shouting from the crowd. Her bodyguards must have been able to tell as well because they raised their hammers in order to protect their leader.

"Are you going to seize Falconreach now!?"

Finally, someone had asked that terrifying question, one that caused Brent to stiffen before he marched to the front of the crowd. "No! the Rose will not be taking Falconreach, this place is a haven for magical beings NOT a town under Rose Influence. They will not be allowed to harm anyone who supports magic, if they try then they'll have to fight me and any other who stands for freedom on Lore"

Some of the townsfolk quieted down at that, though a few could still be heard yelling "Rabble". At Brent's words several Rose soldiers drew their swords and stepped forward, the motion caused some civilians to scream and move back. Before anyone could so much as blink the battle lines had already formed, Brent with the remaining Guardians and Heroes at his back, and Jaania with her army of Rose soldiers.

The two leaders looked at each other, Jaania with a sad expression on her face, Brent with his set-in stone.

Things might have ended peacefully if it wasn't for that rock. It struck Jaania right between the eyes and stunned the woman for a moment, long enough for the soldiers to make their own choices and charge. A blinding glow stopped them in their tracks, when it died down Aegis looked towards Brent and saw him standing with one of his hands held up towards the sky.

About 10 ft in the air there was a magic circle of golden light, dozens of magic swords filled the opening and pulsed with radiant power, Aegis and any other paladins would recognize this as the Swords of Eternity spell. Brent wasn't content with using the spell with its regular limitation however, instead he threw his raised arm out to side, creating even more magic circles until over a dozen hung in the air above them.

Each magic circle began to create even more swords out of light, all of them pointing towards the Rose soldiers who had stopped in their tracks as they stared towards the face of death. We all knew what those swords could do to skeletons and monsters, everyone in Falconreach had seen Brent lay waste to hundreds of them at a time during the Black Winter War. No one moved, not the Rose and not the forces of Falconreach, we all waited to see what the Hero would do now that he'd raised the preverbal stick.

Brent raised an eyebrow and looked across the street towards what he considered to be the enemy.

"If you try to fight me right now I can promise that most of you will die in the next few seconds. Some of you will live but your forces will be decimated, I won't let even half of you live after the first barrage of swords. The only way you get to leave this place alive is if you all turn around and walk back to Swordhaven right now. Otherwise I will kill every single one of you, by myself if I have too."

After his short speech Brent once again locked eyes with Jaania, Aegis looked at her as well, hoping that she wouldn't be stubborn enough to risk Brent's threat. Instead she looked agonized that whatever plan she had when coming here had failed, finally she noticed a small line of blood ran down her forehead from the rock that was thrown earlier. She wiped it away with one of her sleeves, however Aegis could still see the cut above her eyebrow, when she finally met Brent's eyes they were like glaciers.

"If the people of Falconreach are so against receiving aid from the King then we will inform him about this reception. Let it be known that Falconreach will never again be offered aid from the Rose and those allied with us." Said Jaania loud enough for everyone present to hear.

The Rose soldiers muttered amongst themselves before sheathing their weapons and falling back, all except for Jaania's bodyguards and the 20 soldiers standing closest to them.

The magic circle finally began to disappear from the sky, and once the danger had passed Aegis let out a cold breath of relief. For a moment he'd been afraid that they would need to fight again, even after that display of magic on Brent's part he wasn't sure if the Rose would allow themselves to back down in the face of such offensive magic.

People began to go about their business again and return to what homes they had left, the Guardians were already trying to organize a shelter for anyone whose house had been destroyed. The Heroes began to disperse as well, though some of them (Ash, Nythera, Artix and Galanoth) chose to stay and stand with Brent.

They all kept their eyes on the Rose army as it left through the southern gate, and on Jaania as she stood with her guards. Jaania stilled looked at Brent like she wanted to freeze him in ice again, but that was to be expected after what had just happened. She finally took a few steps forward in our direction, we all kept ourselves from drawing our weapons on instinct, but that didn't stop Aegis from tensing his muscles and directing his magic towards his hands.

"Never let it be said that the Rose did not try to help these people, we would have given you supplies and any funding you would have needed to get back to where you were before this war started. I can only hope that your arrogance doesn't lead to the total destruction of this town and the death of its people. So remember this warning "Hero", one day you will ask for my help, and even after you've made offer after offer and begged me for my aid, I will look down at you and say "No"."

After saying that Jaania turned and walked away with her entourage, a small patch of frozen earth was left behind with every step she took.

*Present*

Aegis continued to look at Yulgar's angry face, if he was capable of sweating he would be afraid of leaving a puddle on the ground.

"So you see, he was making the best out of a bad situation – "

One of Yulgar's heavy hands slammed into the basin causing water to splash against the side "That's not good enough! If his actions are going to bring the wrath of the Rose down on this town and my daughters head then I will not stand by!"

Aegis held up his hands in surrender, "Calm down Yulgar, you've known Brent longer then I have. In all those years has he ever purposely harmed you or your daughter? All he's ever tried to do was protect this town and the people in it."

Before the old blacksmith could respond the tent flaps leading to the shop were opened by a large bear paw. The two men tensed and prepared for a fight when the bear moved all the way through the opening, on its back sat Aria with her legs around a hump on its back. Beside the bear was a slightly nervous Falwynn who was clutching an old dirty harp to her chest.

When she saw Aegis her expression changed to one of surprise before focusing on Yulgar. Her face changed to one of happiness as she thrust out the harp towards Aria's father, "We found your harp for you Mr. Yulgar! Aria's Pridemasters were able to move through the underbrush better then either of us could. All it needs is a good wash and a tune up to make sure it still works."

Yulgar looked at the harp in shock his eyes stuck on the name Lark etched into the metal near the base. He finally looked at Falwynn as tears began to form in the corner of his eyes, "Thank you, I never thought that I'd ever see this again. You should be proud of yourself young lady, if you ever need a favor simple ask and I will see what I can do."

The green hair girl's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment at the praise, she was clearly excited that she'd completed what could be considered her first quest. Even if it wasn't something crazy like stopping a horde of elementals or defeating an evil necromancer, every Heroes story starts somewhere.

Everyone's attention turned to Aria as she directed the bear towards a clearing off to the side, the Beast Master jumped off its back as it laid down to rest. The happy red head came running over and cheerfully explained, "We found this guy on the road to Oaklore, I decided to name him Edward!"

Falwynn looked at Aegis with a resigned expression that screamed "Yes this did happen, don't question it just go with it." The Spirit just laughed to himself, it seemed like she was finally getting used to the crazy that was their lives.

Yulgar looked at the bear bewilderedly before setting his eyes on his daughter, no words passed between the two and before long he lowered his head and shrugged his shoulders. Aria let out a little cheer and hoped up on the rim of the basin beside her father, Aegis grinned when he noticed the twitch that had developed under Falwynn's eye.

Deciding to spare the Apprentice anymore headache he said to her, "Brent asked me to check up on you, he'll be back from his meeting soon and then we'll be heading out to a job. I look forward to fighting with you Falwynn." The smile he gave her was hopefully encouraging, he couldn't help but be curious after all. Aegis had never expected Brent to get an Apprentice and his arrival in Ravenloss with her had been a pleasant surprise, he wanted to know how good she would be in a fight.

End Notes

So here's one of the big changes in my story from canon, instead of being worn out and allowing the towns people to vote for themselves my MC decided they didn't want anything the Rose had to offer. Because of that there were some repercussions, such as increased activity around Falconreach. The next chapter will deal with this issue and hopefully answer some questions you might have.

Now, I have some questions for all of you. I've had several ideas for the next couple fic's that I want to write, since I cant decide on my own I want to know what you all think. Here are your options:

\- Naruto: The Legendary Saboteur of Konoha - Naruto decides to give up on becoming the strongest ninja in the village and instead decides to master the things he's already good at. Those things being: pranks, sneaking, transformation, and the shadow clone jutsu. Watch as Naruto puts his terrifying pranking skills to good use and shows the entire ninja world what the Prank Masker King of Konoha is capable of.

\- Destiny: a Tale of Fallen Guardians - A series of one shots detailing the death of multiple Guardians who did not survive the attack on the tower at the beginning of the second game.

\- Destiny/Mass Effect crossover: Guardians from another world - While exploring the Infinite Forest a Guardian gets trapped in a glitch that sends him to a parallel reality. One where humanity never received the light of the Traveler, but instead found a new way to expand. Now this Guardian along with Commander Shepard must fight back the Reaper and stop the Vex at the same time from destroying all life across the multiverse.

I have a few other ideas but these are the three that I want to work on the most, please let me know what you guys think in the comments.


	10. Chapter 10

Authors Note

All aspects belong to AE, I just made the MC

Hello everyone! I'd like to start by saying that i cant believe how long its been since i last posted a chapter, a lot of things have happened to me in the past year. Including the deaths of two friends, my Grandfather and my Dog. I was also extremely busy with my job and other commitments in life which kept me from writing the few times I actually wanted too. Now however Im back in school and life is starting to form into a pattern again, so im hoping to get back into this story.

I wrote an extra long chapter to make up for such a long wait, this ones over 8000 words! anyways, I hope you guys enjoy, please leave a review on what you think!

Chapter 10: New Plans and Worthy Foes

Brent waved towards the Guardians that shouted their greetings to him, the light smile on his face was a genuine one as he returned their kindness. He entered Falconreach for the second time this day, though the sun had set now, and the moon was shinning in the sky. Brent wondered about his Apprentice and just what he was hoping to achieve with her. At first, he had worried about failing the young girl and unknowingly leading her to her death, but now his mind had wondered into a different direction.

His meeting with Mritha and Kara had been interesting to say the least, if he'd been asked a week ago who was the most stubborn between the three he would have said himself. Kara however had proven him wrong, and not only managed to wear him down but also convince him to her way of thinking. When Mritha had first explained the plan to attack and occupy the new Rose bases he'd been more than sceptical about how likely they would be able to succeed.

Now he understood that it was less about the chances of success and more about if they could afford to fight a war on all sides. If the surrounding territory wasn't at least contested then the Resistance would be found out and crushed by General Akanthus, meaning that there would be no one strong enough to protect the magical creatures and people of Lore. Akanthus had been ruthless so far in his campaign against magic, and it was his men that committed most of the assaults on large magical communities. While Brent had been Frozen in Ice, the General convinced King Alteon to allow the Rose to wage open warfare with the elementals surrounding the nearby territories. They killed them in droves, admittedly making the roads safer to travel, however the elemental balance was already weak after the War with Wargoth. The wild elementals soon retreated and wasn't long before Akanthus set his eyes on the rest of the magical world.

First they attacked other creatures, like the Clawkin and Dravir. Then they moved on to Doomwood and began to fight the werewolves and vampires that had plagued the forests for so long. They continued this trend in every area they entered until a dislike of magic had spread to most of the people in Swordhaven. After all, why shouldn't they be happy? So long as you're a regular human you have nothing to worry about, and the world probably seems saver than its ever been before. But if you happened to be either a mage or part of a race that had some innate magic, then you had to suddenly be careful about who you trusted. Otherwise your neighbors might wake up one morning to find out that you and your family have been forced out of town or arrested by the Rose or its supporters.

None of the Resistance leaders wanted this, both Kara and Brent knew that this kind of action would almost certainly lead to more aggressive action from the Rose. Sadly for both of them, Kara was right when she pointed out that the Rose would continue to close the noose if no offensive action was taken to stop them. Kara was by far one of the most peace orientated people that Brent had ever known, second only to Lady Celestia, so for her to suggest this kind of plan showed how desperate the Resistance was really becoming.

And now he had to address the meat of the issue, Brent was supposed to lead these attacks along with some of his allies that had proven that they were both loyal to him, and strong enough to survive against a fort full of trained Rose soldiers. Brent already knew that he could get Yashta and Aegis to come and that they wouldn't be too threatened by the Rose, they along with his dragon should be more than enough to handle the odds that they would be up against. The problem was that he didn't know if he should bring Falwynn on these missions, or if he should try and leave her with Aria. She was the newest addition to his team, and while he felt that she was trustworthy enough that she wouldn't betray them, it did not mean that she was ready to experience death on that kind of scale.

Over the years Brent had grown used to the sight of dead bodies, wondering from battle to battle isn't exactly good for a persons' mental health and he had been doing that for a decade. It hadn't all happened at once of course, otherwise he would have surely been killed a long time ago from freezing in the middle of combat. Something that Falwynn had done in almost every combat scenario he'd placed her in so far, this was acceptable behaviour for a new Apprentice but not when they were in the same situations that he ended up in on a daily basis.

No, Falwynn wasn't ready for that kind of fight yet, even he wouldn't have been back in his early years. There was a reason why most adventurers started off killing bandits and snevils after all, and it wasn't because they actually wanted too.

Having thought of those tiny, green, box stealing annoyances reminded Brent that he really needed to visit the Box Fort with his Apprentice. Perhaps putting her through a few tedious quests and she might even want to go back home to her father where it was safest.

That startling realization actually stopped Brent in his tracks just a few meters from Aria's tent, did he actually want Falwynn to leave? To go back to her family to live out her life as a blacksmith most likely? He thought about the cheerful face and the wide smile Falwynn had shown him from time to time during his "lessons". She genuinely wanted to learn from him, and after putting some more thought into it Brent couldn't picture her being happy cramped inside a forge all day.

Falwynn actually wanted to be hero, not for glory or fame, but because she wanted to be more then what she already was. A woman with that kind of drive could become anything she wanted, even Jaania for all their differences was a woman he had been willing to fight beside after only spending a few minutes with her. Of course, she had gone and ruined that by freezing him in ice for 7 years, but he still had to respect her power and the iron will that placed them on opposite sides in this war.

It was his fault that she was even here, along with Warlic and Xan the three of them managed to free Jaania after being trapped for years in magical ice. Of course, he also knew that they never would have beaten Wargoth if it wasn't for her help as well. If only she had been willing to talk from the beginning instead of lashing out after the fight when we were all exhausted, and if only he'd been faster the world could have been a much different place.

Brents mind when back to Falwynn and the up coming missions, leaving her behind wasn't an option really. After all, wasn't the point of an Apprenticeship to do as the Master does, and in this case that was to fight the Rose. That didn't mean he couldn't take more people on this attack, it couldn't hurt to find one or two more friends willing to help. A smile spread across his face as he pictured showing her off to Galanoth and Warlic, along with Robina and the Resistance.

With these happy thoughts on his mind he entered Arias tent, the first thing he noticed was that the shop was empty. Muffled laughter came from behind opposite opening leading out to the backyard, he moved through the shop and opened the flap expecting to see Falwynn and Aria.

Instead all he could see were two black eyes and the large grin of a Grizzly Bear, immediately he let out a yelp of surprise and jumped into the air. As he passed over the large animal it moved to stand up, Brent thrust out a hand towards the ground off to the side and a blue spirit chain shot out and dug deep into the dirt. The chain then retracted and pulled Brent away from the Bear before it could make any attacks, he was about to summon his soul claws so that he could fight but some laughter coming from behind the Bear.

The Bear stared at him from its standing position, making it at least 10 feet tall, but it didn't move to attack him at all. Finally a voice called out which grabbed both their attentions, "Nice job Edward! I can't believe you made him jump so high." Said Aria with a laugh. Standing beside her was Falwynn who was trying to stifle her giggles now that Brent was looking in her direction.

Beside the two young women stood Aegis and Yulgar, both with small smiles on their faces, probably enjoying his momentary fright as much as the other two had.

The Bear, which was apparently named Edward, merely sat down and look at the small red head as she ran up and began scratching his chin as a reward. The young Beastmaster turned with a glare aimed at Brent, "If you hurt him like you did Thomas I will never forgive you."

The Heroes eye went wide as he remembered one of his first quests in Falconreach, and the angry child that had kicked him in the crotch before screaming at him for killing her pet.

Yulgar then looked towards Falwynn beside him and held out his hand, "I just want to say thank you again for finding my wife's harp, you have no idea what this means to me. If theirs anything I can do to repay you just let me know, I always pay my debts."

After a quick look of surprised she took his hand and shook it, a smile replacing the previous confusion. "It wasn't a problem Yulgar, I'm just glad that I was able to help, Aria's Pridemasters did the most work when it came to actually finding it.". She suddenly looked nervous before steadying herself, "and if its not too much trouble, maybe you could show some tricks when it comes to forging weapons. My father's been teaching me ever since I was a child, but everyone knows your one of the greatest Blacksmiths on Lore."

Brent was momentarily surprised that she would ask him to teach her, but then he remembered his little speech he had given before Falwynn met Lanrete and got her new sword. The one about finding multiple teachers and learning as much as you could, a sense of pride swelled in his chest as he realized just how much potential Falwynn had. All that she needed was the opportunity to grow and increase her combat skills, then she might one day have a legend as great as his.

He was so distracted thinking about the future that he didn't notice Aria approaching him until she was already standing in front, "Hey I'm still talking to you! Don't ignore me!".

Then his world exploded in pain as her foot once again made contact with his crotch.

*Meanwhile*

Falwynn winced in sympathy as Brent collapsed to the ground in front of Aria with a high-pitched yell, she was still yelling at him for ignoring her. Edward sat down again and laid his large head on his paws and relaxed, she then turned back to a smiling Yulgar who said "I'd be happy to show you a thing or two about forging weapons and armor, who's your father? Is he a smith from Swordhaven?"

"No, my father is Doug Digg of Lymcrest. He said that the two of you used to do business together before the Rose came around and took all the ore."

Yulgar appeared surprised for a moment, no doubt because she was clearly human and my father was a well known dwarf, but it quickly went away and was replaced with another smile. "We did use to work together, though its been at least five years since we last saw each other. I hope he's doing well for himself now that Lymcrest is shut down for the most part, I should try to visit him sometime and see if he'd like to do some Collaboratory work. As for teaching you a few tricks how about I help you make another crossbow? I noticed that you only had the one, and even if its clearly been enhanced beyond a simple crossbow there is always room for improvement."

Falwynn could feel her excitement begin to build as she imagined working with the legendary smith, and she had never considered having two crossbows since she the other hand to reload. But if she had access to his materials and experience the possibilities would be endless, she couldn't wait to tell her dad about this!

She watched Yulgar leave and enter the tent, her attention turned to Brent as he finally got up off the ground with the help of Aegis. Aria had finally stopped lecturing him about what she would do if he ever hurt one of her animals again. Falwynn approach the duo with a proud smile on her face, one that the two individuals shared, even if Brents was strained because of the pain.

"I hear what he said, congratulations on the new weapon. Yulgar's given me great equipment over the years, and he's even the one who taught me how to become a blacksmith. I guess that makes us both students of his, but don't forget that I'm still your primary teacher." He said with a smile, he quickly drank a little bit of a health potion to deal with the pain Aria had inflicted on him.

Aegis laughed a little and Brent glared at him, his eyes then went back to Falwynn. "I've got some jobs for us to do, we'll be heading back to Ravenloss soon but first let's stop at the inn and see whose there. We also need to meet with Ash afterwards and find out what his informant knows, I hope your ready for a busy night." He said as a wide smile spread across his face. The three of them then left Arias shop and headed for the Inn, on their way they passed Al and Twilly sitting in their usual spots. Al had crawled out of the stable to sit beside the stump that Twilly usually sat on, he raised his large as the three came closer. His head was tilted to the side slightly in question, Brent shook his head no but did tell him that they would be leaving soon.

They continued to the Inn and noticed that Ash was gone from his usual place, Brent entered the Inn first with Falwynn behind him and Aegis bring up the rear. She took note of the odd jobs wall to the right of the second door as well as the hat rack on the left. Once they entered the main room of the Inn it was clear that most patrons were either asleep or had yet to return for the night. Most of the table were empty, except for two small groups huddled in the back by the fire.

The first table was the one closest to the fire place, sitting at it were three figures that couldn't look more different unless they were actually trying to. The most noticeable one was a woman with bronze skin and hair made out of literal fire, how it wasn't burning her clothes was a mystery, that was tucked behind her ears and went all the way down to her waist. There were also strange yellow tattoos across the visible parts of the woman's body that looked like fire, including her cheeks and chin. She wore a red cloth wrapped around her upper body almost like a robe, except it left her arms and sides bare. Across her body was an assortment of gold jewelry, such as bracelets, necklaces, and arm bands that kept the cloth in place.

Falwynn also notice a rather large red and gold grimoire chained to her waist, and an elegant golden rapier that seemed to match the rest of her colorful attire. Currently, the woman was talking to a hooded figure sitting directly across from her while waving her arms around in a cheerful manner.

The hooded figure was a lot harder to figure out, mostly because she couldn't actually see anything besides the drab and ratty brown robe they were wearing. The person was covered from head to toe by the cloth with a shadow obscuring their face, whoever they were they clearly didn't like to be seen. Besides that, the outfit looked rather disappointing when compared to the fiery woman's, like something a person might throw away before it completely fell apart.

The final figure had dark hair and was the only man of the group, he was face down on the table clearly drunk, if the multiple tankards around him were any indication. From where she was standing Falwynn could see leather armor colored green and brown much like the set she was currently wearing, as well as a quiver of arrows strapped to his back.

At the other side of the room, close to the door leading to the basement of the Inn, sate both San Robin and Roblos. Neither man needed introduction because they were both relatively famous in Falconreach, and because no one else in their right mind would wear bright orange with a slice of cheese on their chest.

Almost immediately Falwynn felt a set of hands land on her shoulders and drag her back towards the front door, along with several muttered curses coming from behind her. Just a few moments before they could make a clean get away from whatever had Brent worried there was a yell of "Hey Brent! Come on over here! Let us buy you a drink for old times sake."

Falwynn finally saw Brents face, it was scrunched up in annoyance but also in resignation. Finally a some what fake smile appeared on his face as he turned again and waved towards the table of three before walking over. "Hey guys how've you been lately? This is my Apprentice Falwynn by the way, though I suspect you've already heard of her by now."

The two conscious members each waved towards Falwynn, though the woman with flaming hair was far more energetic then her robbed friend. "Nice to meet you, if your working with Brent now your either really good, or really unlucky haha. My names Terra, the shy girl sitting across from me is Victoria, and the drunken fool behind me is Zack."

Her statement ended with a hard smack to the side of Zacks head, causing him to practically leap out of his chair with a cry of "Zombies!" followed by a hastily thrown dagger from a sash rapped around his waist. The dagger flew towards Brent in the blink of an eye, but he still managed to catch it before the weapon could do any damage. Terra's eyes closed as she laughed, apparently finding the whole thing funny, now that she could see the Zacks face properly Falwynn noticed that he was younger than his two teammates. She also noticed that he looked surprisingly similar appearance to what Brent would look like without his beard and long hair. His tanned skin showed that he'd spent a lot of time under the sun, while his short black hair brushed back exposing the rest of his face. A small goatee was the only facial hair the man had but it seemed to fit him just right, his brown eyes looked hazy from just coming out of a drunken sleep.

Zack let out a weak chuckle as he held out his hand, Brent smirked and passed the mans dagger back to him hilt first. Once it was placed back in its sheath the young man pulled out his chair and sat back down, Aegis grabbed two chairs from a nearby empty table and brought them over for Falwynn and Brent.

The two sat down while the Spirit Ally stood behind his partner and his Apprentice, Brent finally seemed to relax as he rested in his chair and accepted a tankard of Ale from Terra. Falwynn tried to look inside Victoria's hood but realized that was covered in shadow hiding her identity. She wanted to ask about it but knew that Victoria must have a reason, and she already had way too many questions for Brent.

Speaking of her teacher, Brent had just finished his drink and was placing the tankard back on the table. He seemed to stare at the three adventurers critically for a moment before a satisfied smile appeared on his face, he turned to Victoria and asked, "So what have you three been up to? Last I heard there'd been some of trouble up at the Shears."

"Nothing to dangerous, just some small battles between groups of mages and Rose warriors along the road. We only had a little bit of trouble getting here, but now we're ready to find some new work. We might even go to Ravenloss, I have a small house that the three of us could share for the mean time." replied the robbed woman, her voice was much quieter than Terra's had been. Though it was steady and almost confident, traits that one wouldn't normally associate with someone so shy that they would use magic to conceal their face.

Terra spoke with a lot of pride in her voice as she said, "I think we took down about 20 soldiers all together, and I managed to take out five of them all at once!" One of her hands came up holding a small ball of fire, it quickly shot up into the air and exploded causing everyone to flinch and move away a little. When no one seemed hurt by the fire they all calmed down and glare at the flame haired woman, whose eyes were closed and a smile on her face, making her oblivious to their anger. "Like that! You really missed out on a great explosion."

Brent seemed to be impressed by this and looked back towards Victoria with a worried expression, "None of you were hurt? What about other travellers on the road? Do you know if any are being taken?"

He seemed very concerned about this news but Victoria seemed to ease some of his worries by answering in that same quiet voice as before, "There have been a few kidnappings but Sir Leon is doing very well keeping the roads safe for magic users, though its sad to say that a few do slip through the cracks from time to time."

Falwynn almost jumped out of her chair as Terra smashed her hand down on the table, her happy mood gone now that the topic had changed to the missing mages. The flames of her hair seemed to spike as her irritation grew, and her eyes burned almost as literally as her hair. "Those bastards just come out of the woods and drag people off if they even look like they use, its disgusting how they just assume we're all evil or uncontrollable."

Falwynn looked at the other two members of the group and saw that they were also upset at the idea of people getting taken off the road. The Shears was much closer to Swordhaven then Falconreach was, so it was much more heavily patrolled, with roving bands of manahunters and other Rose troops wondering through the forest. She'd heard some stories about what happened to some of those people, along with the creatures in the area that were captured.

Some said they were kept locked in cages or drained of their magic and left to die from mana exhaustion. While there had been plenty of people with magic who had abused their power to hurt others, it was wrong to attack everyone with magic. All that did was create more people who feel that they need to fight in order to live, which causes more pain and suffering leading to a cycle of hatred that only ends once one group is dead and gone.

Brent leaned forward and said in a whisper just loud enough for the table to hear "How would you like to help me strike a blow against the Rose here in Surewould? Some friends and I are planning an attack tonight, and I know the three of you are skilled enough to hold your own." He then raised an eyebrow in question and looked at each of their eyes before leaning back in his chair, "So, are you interested?"

Terra and Victoria looked at each other first before turning to Zack who, still seeming a little drunk, gave them two thumbs up and a big smile. All together the three looked at Brent and said in unison "We're in" Then Victoria stood up and walked towards the three other heroes. As she did a large brown leather bag hanging from the back of her chair opened up, suddenly bones covered in a green glow began to fly out and surround the hooded woman.

In only a few seconds she was covered in bone armor made out rib bones, skulls, and femurs. The large bones formed around her legs like shine guards with large fanged skulls covering the kneecaps. Above that rested a belt made of curved rib bones with yet another skull centered at her navel, her arms and shoulders were the most impressive by far however. Two huge monster skulls covered in horns and spikes sat on top of thick bone plates, the middle of which was wrapped in thick hide that looked somewhat rotten. Frayed leather strips hung from the large pauldron and swayed in a wind that didn't exist, brushing against two smaller skulls with large fangs. The armor set ended in ribcage like gauntlets with smaller bones covering her hands, to finish off the look green energy began leaking through the seams of Victoria's robes. Two glowing green eyes scanned the room from the eye sockets of the spiked skulls, when its eye landed on Falwynn she couldn't supress her shutter, it was unsettling how the girl had looked so normal just moments ago.

Falwynn couldn't believe that she was looking at a real live necromancer! What was going on? And how had she seemed so normal if was willing to use such terrible magic?

she had some serious questions for Brent after this, she was in the dark about far too many things.

She watched Victoria hold out her hand and a small black and green portal appeared above the floor, from it a long black staff capped with a red Ruby Jewel. Small arcs of lightning appeared around the gem periodically, and if that wasn't enough two sets of black bat wings sprouted from her back as soon as her fingers wrapped around the staff. The first set of wings were rather small and didn't seem like they would be very effective, while the second pair were much larger and looked like they would allow her to glide at the very least.

"where do you want us to meet? And you'll have to give us more details on what kind of plan you have. There's no way we're just going to walk in through the front door."

Brent, who was completely unfazed by the necromancer in front of him, just placed a hand over his heart and gave her a fake wounded look. "Me? Charge in without a plan? Please Victoria, I thought you knew me better than that. I'll have Aegis take you to our house in Ravenloss, I'll be going to pick up another friend of mine before I meet you there."

With that said Victoria seemed to almost float away, behind her following at a steady pace was Terra, who had a large smile on her face at the thought of fighting the Rose. As well as Zack who was lagging behind since he left a big tip on the table for all the ale he'd drank.

Aegis bid the Master and Apprentice farewell as he left with the other group of Adventurers, leaving Falwynn and Brent alone. Before Brent could even think to leave Falwynn grabbed his sleeve and gave him a hard look, "I think you owe me a few explanations on our way to find Ash, like how you know a necromancer for starters. I thought you'd spent years fighting against them? What makes her different?"

*Meanwhile*

Brent couldn't help feeling anxious about answering Falwynn's question, the fact that in most situations it would be a completely reasonable one didn't help make things easier. After all, how does one tell their student that they've also not only studied necromancy but gone beyond that into a different level of evil.

A faint laughter could be heard in the back of his mind; however, he did his best to ignore it in favor of answering his Apprentice. "That is an excellent question" when he couldn't think of anything else to really say he motioned for Falwynn to follow him, hoping that he could stale for a few more seconds to think of a real answer.

By the time they reach the front door of the Inn Brent had most of what he wanted to say planned out, "I meet Victoria while I was helping Artix find the Darkness orb while infiltrating the Necropolis, she was one of the students learning there that I was paired up with during a class. I was trying to blend in so I started asking her questions, such as how long she'd been learning necromancy and what made her pick it over other kinds of magic."

As he talked the two moved towards Al who was now standing with his wings folded at his side, the drake squatted down slightly so that Brent and Falwynn could climb onto his back. With a quick wave to Twilly they took off towards Falconreach's eastern gate, as they rode Falwynn asked "So what was her answer then? I can't see any good reason for why someone would study how to raise the dead."

"Well before I tell you her reason you need to understand that Victoria comes from Doomwood, more specifically from a family of necromancers. So, to her this kind of magic wasn't anything special, the Necropolis was just a greater opportunity for her to learn and impress her parents. As for what she uses it for? Mostly alchemy and multitasking."

Brent didn't need to see Falwynn to know that she must have a confused expression on her face, after all he'd been confused too before Victoria had fully explained what she meant by "multitasking".

"She's a very gifted alchemist but was never satisfied with how long it took to properly brew certain potions, so she uses skeletons to gather ingredients and do the easier but repetitive tasks that she doesn't have time to do. Honestly, she didn't see it as anything bad, just a means to be more efficient. She was only 18 when she was in her third year of studying, which is crazy because most other students were in their mid 20's to late 30's."

As they passed the gate and the two Guardians stationed there they took a left turn into Surewould forest, "But that doesn't excuse the fact that she's bring peoples relatives back from the dead, especially if it's just to gather some plants and make things easier for herself." Said Falwynn with a bit of resentment in her tone of voice.

He'd have to stop that kind of attitude right away if they were all going to be able to work together later tonight, the last thing he needed was for Falwynn to pick a fight with Victoria in the middle of a mission. He tapped his Dragon Amulet and focused, telling Al to pull over and stop near the sign post that showed which path would lead to Warlic's tent as well as Falconreach.

While Brent couldn't turn fully to face his Apprentice he didn't have to in order to get his point across, "I'll be the first to admit that most necromancers are evil and willing to go to horrible lengths to make themselves more powerful, Avatars know I've fought enough of them to prove this. However, Victoria stood beside me for years using that very same magic to defend the people of this world from men like Sepulchure and many others over the years."

He could see out of the corner of his eye that Falwynn still wasn't convinced about Victoria, "If your still worried about her using the bodies of dead people I'd be glad to tell you that she hasn't used any since leaving the Necropolis. Victoria uses the bones of dead animals and monsters to do her bidding, it was one of her conditions for being allowed into Falconreach before The Final 13th War."

Brent stopped talking for a moment, looking around for any signs of tracks that might belong to Ash, while he looked around he continued to talk.

"The Guardians were of course suspicious at first and didn't want to let her in the city, but I manage to convince them to give her a chance. Since then she's been one of its most loyal defenders, but even with the respect she's earned over the years she still feels ashamed of how she used to think. Its one of the reasons why she always wears that hood of hers, its so that if she decides to go out in public people wont judge her when she isn't wearing her robes."

Al finally rode passed a fallen log and entered a small clearing near a small waterfall, standing in the tree to the right Brent could make out two shapes. He pulled Al into a stop near the far side of the clearing and dismounted before helping Falwynn down as well.

"Just please give her a chance, she's been a friend for a long time and I think she'll grow on you."

Brent turned and began to look for Ash, he didn't have to wait long as two figures walked out of the trees. He immediately recognized Ash and then looked at the informant beside him, it was a young man wearing Rose armor and a black cap, Cinquefoil looked back at him with a smile and said.

"It's good to see you again Brent, there's been a lot of activity at the Rose Fort recently. Magnus Hansa was moved to Swordhaven to work on a special project with Janina, and the new commander wants to expand deeper into the forest. He's brought at least 30 new soldiers with him to defend a new barricade, as well as some collared Clawkin's to serve as night guards. I'm not sure how your planning to get in but I recommend you don't go alone."

Ash had a hard look in his eyes and a grim face, "I'm not sure if I can convince any of the Guardians to attack a Rose Fort unprovoked. Cinquefoil was telling me about this new commander, his name is Ostwick and he's very skilled at using two swords. He's also the son of a minor noble from Swordhaven, so we'll have to be careful when we fight him, what's the plan Brent?"

While Ash was talking to Brent, Cinquefoil stepped towards Falwynn and her a small smile and a slight bow. "It's nice to meet you Falwynn, Ash told me that you are Brent's new Apprentice. I must admit that I'm quite curious about how you got the position, I've known him a long time and he's never had one before."

"Well, the truth is that it sort of just happened. I was asked by Sir Leon to deliver a message to Brent at the Tournament of Champions, he saved my life when Fangblade tried to kill me. A couple of days after, I found out Brent was old friends with my dad. The next thing I knew I was packing my bags and following him to Falconreach, I kind of freaked out at first because I was so excited." Falwynn said as she let out a small laugh.

Cinquefoil raised an eyebrow in interest but didn't say anything else, instead looking towards the two heroes that were still talking to each other.

Brent had his arms crossed and a big smile on his face, "Then Al swoops in and clears the walls, they wont even know what's going on until we're up close and dangerous. I'll explain more when we meet up with the other in Ravenloss, I've got to talk to Falwynn now, so I'll see you at the portal."

The two shared a quick arm shake and confident grins before Ash headed back down the trail leading to Falconreach. The Hero looked at the Spy and asked, "You wouldn't happen to have a map, or a sketch of the new defences and their weaknesses would you." This caused Cinquefoil to smile back and reach into a satchel on his hip, "I have a rough drawing of the new walls and barricade, sadly I haven't learned what the night watch shifts are yet."

He handed Brent a large folded piece of paper which he quickly opened to inspect. The drawing was of new walls made of wood extending out of the old stone walls roughly 60ft according to the scale in the corner. A few arrows had been drawn in red pointing towards towers and walls above the gate, several stick figures were drawn in places along the walls showing where they would be standing. The Hero folded it up and placed it in one of the side pockets in his coat.

"Stay save ok, if your ever discovered and need to hide come to Falconreach and look for Ash. Until then keep up the great work." Brent said with a smile on his face.

The Spy bowed his head and smiled back before turning around heading back into the forest, Brent then turned to his Apprentice and allowed the smile to slowly fall from his face. His mind hadn't strayed very far from his earlier conversation with Falwynn, she clearly hadn't been told about some of his darker adventures, and she had a right to know about some of the terrible things he'd done.

He just hoped she wouldn't be afraid of him afterwards.

Falwynn must have been able to tell something was off about him because her eyebrows were scrunched together, her eyes held an expression of worry, either for him or for what he was about to say.

*Meanwhile*

The streets of Swordhaven were bustling with activity, merchants calling out to the masses from their stands, citizens running back and forth going about their business, even children playing with wide smiles on their faces. It was an idyllic view some would say, and Akanthus couldn't help but agree, the population was happy and the soldier's moral was in high spirits with the Gala approaching. The Generals eyes moved up from the citizen down below and looked at the high walls surrounding Swordhaven. They were strong, made of the best stone on the continent and maned by some of his finest troops in his command. He had no doubt that any attacking force would break upon its walls or suffer greatly to get in, he would not lose this city as easily as the Rose tower out in the forest by the Shears Inn.

Sir Leon thought himself clever, but his spy's had discovered his location months ago. Better to let the fool knight think himself safe in his den rather than worried about intruders, meaning that he could eliminate that pocket of resistance whenever he felt like. Perhaps he would use their deaths as an example towards the Resistance hiding out by Falconreach, and once he found them this foolish war will finally be over.

Of course, his true goals would be beginning once he had crushed the Resistance. For he had his eye on a much greater prize, but to even think of achieving that he would need to unite the people on this side of Lore. Only then could he hope to invade Nieboheim with any success of defeating the Magesterium and bring the world into true peace.

Akanthus finally turned away from the window and back towards his desk, his office was a small room at the top of the castles tallest tower. From here he could survey the city and relay orders to his captains and soldiers, it was also a place that would draw an enemy's attention once he made his location known. Any enemy that comes to close to this tower would find itself surprised by the protective wards he had Jannia place into the very tower itself.

The interior was dark since there was only one window facing towards the city, but enough light came through that he could still make out the few items he kept at this location. A sturdy Oak desk that had several hidden compartments for him to store important documents, a large shelf along the back wall containing books on magic and previous wars fought over the years. Akanthus passed both of these things to walk towards a large map pinned to a mobile board with many pins and markings on it, as he closed the distance he once again looked at locations marked and pinned on the map.

The majority of them were placed in random locations that seemed to surround Falconreach and the nearby forests on either side of the rebellious fools living in that forsaken city. There were several pins to the left of Oaklore Keep but none of the scout sent in that direction claim to have found anything. However, some of these scouts say that a mysterious wind had them walking in circles, thus leading to the pins and markings.

To the north of Falconreach there was even more pins, though the rest of the map was covered in red and black ink detailing attacks and the fatality reports. This location had lead to the death of over 40 Rose agents in recent years, the only reason he had not personally gone to that area and killed the beast responsible was due to one of the surviving scouts report. He and Jannia had grown tired of sending men out and never hearing from them again, so they sent a second scout to watch his partner and report back if anything happened to him.

After two days the second scout returned with a grewsome tale of how a large black and red Drake had ambushed and devoured his partner. He only managed to escape due to the monster being distracted with its meal, what Akanthus' attention however was the description of the dragon. It matched all the reported sightings of Brents Dragon, and if it was responsible for all the previous disappearances then it was likely defending it's nest.

Meaning he knew the general location one on of his enemies most important Allies, and who knows, perhaps the beast was guarding an even greater prize. All he needed to do was narrow down the exact location of the Dragons lair, as well as whatever else might be hidden there. As he thought on this he heard a knock on his door, still looking at the map and thinking on the future he called out, "Enter."

The heavy tower door swung open and a young man of perhaps 20 years of age wearing Rose Soldier armor entered the room, his face was crestfallen, and he held an air of defeat around him. The Generals attention finally turned towards his soldier, his eyes squinted together behind his helmet as he took in the posture of the young lad.

"Report soldier, what news has you in such a state?" he said with a voice that was neither cold nor comforting.

The boy looked up at the heavily armored figure that was the physical might of the Rose Forces, he tried to school his expression but couldn't keep his voice from breaking slightly. "Scout Lemming reporting Sir, I'm here to report that my partner made it 45 feet deeper into the forest then he did last time. He signaled that he may have found something but before I could get closer he was attacked from behind and mauled by the Drake."

His eyes held back tears but he stubbornly held them in, "We thought we had hidden our scent well but it must not have been enough."

The General heard all of this and nodded his head solemnly, he then went to his desk and grabbed a red pin and black charcoal. When he stood in front of the map again he asked, "What is the number of your scouting team soldier?"

The scouts hand went into the space just below his chin and into his shirt, pulling out a metal tag on a black string with the Rose emblem on it. Below the Rose was a name and number etched into the plate, "We were scouts 177 & 178 Sir."

That new caused Akanthus to pause as his hand moved towards the numbers he had just heard, "Ah I see now what has caused you grief, you are one of the Lemming brothers, your dead partner is your brother isn't it."

The General spoke this not to be unkind, but his words caused the tears to finally fall from the young man's eyes, his voice choking as he responded, "Yes Sir, he was my younger brother Kenny. I don't know how I'm going to break the news to Ma."

Akanthus let out a tired sigh as he looked at the crying boy, War should never need to be fought by people so young, Leave it to the old and the bitter, the angry and the mad.

The tall knights' heavy boots clanked on the ground as he approached the young scout and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, "You have my sympathies, I to have lost family in the past. The wounds never close, but know that his death goes towards our ultimate goal of uniting this land and making it safe for all of humanity. Hopefully, because of your brothers sacrifice today your children will be able to live long and happy lives in the coming future."

He bent down so that his eyes were locked with the boys, wide brown eyes that looked at him with a mix of awe and wonder. "It is your duty now to live, not just for yourself, but for your family and the ones who will not get to live in that happy future."

The young boy's lips slowly turned up into a small smile, and his eyes brightened just a bit more then they had when he entered the room. His arm and closed fist hit against his chest and shoulder, "Yes Sir! Thank you for your kind words, I won't die anytime soon General."

He then turned around and marched out of the room, his back straight and head held high.

Akanthus smiled and hoped the boy was right, it was always a shame hearing about the deaths of his men, but he knew that their sacrifice was not in vain so long as he won in the end. He walked back towards the map and found the furthest dot labelled with the numbers 177 and 178, then measured out 45 additional feet before marking the new location. A black star was drawn beside the red pin to symbolize a death, as well as a possible lead towards something in the area.

His mind once again wondered, this time to the only real threat he could see being a lasting problem. The damned Hero had been causing mayhem and killing his soldiers and agents left and right where ever he could find them, and it wouldn't be long before he got over confident and made a mistake. Akanthus knew that Brent was possibly the strongest on this continent, but he also knew that one man could not fight against a whole army. He would just need to take out the "Hero" with overwhelming force and by surprise, only then was he sure that casualties could be limited and victory still achieved.

He would need to be there himself, he would trust no one else to succeed at this. And beyond the mere fact that Brent was an obstacle in his way to true peace, Akanthus also acknowledged his power and skill, if Akanthus was going to fight the members of the Magesterium then he would first need to kill Brent.

End Notes

And there it is! everyone finally gets to hear a bit from Akanthus, and it seems like he's closing in on our heroes and his friends. And what exactly is it that Brents going to tell Falwynn? Find out! on next weeks episode of Dragonball Z!

Oh wait wrong Fandom haha


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